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The story of the English kings who crowded slavery upon the South makes up one of theblackest pages in the history of a country that has been like unto a sower who went forth to sow with

Chapter IX

Chapter V

Chapter III

Chapter IV

The Battle of Principles

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The Battle of Principles

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NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS

THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict 12mo,

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The Battle of Principles

A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict

By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D D

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO Fleming H Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH

Copyright, 1912, by FLEMING H REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W London: 21Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

Foreword

These are days of destiny for the people of the Republic Democracy, like a beautiful civilization, is sweepingover all the earth From Portugal comes the news of a monarchy that is taking on democratic forms Turkey

has announced the liberty of the printing press, Russia is planning a new system of popular education, China

is in process of adopting a constitutional government, with a cabinet responsible to the people Unless onereads the newspapers in many languages, the observer will miss daily some new victory for democracy Greatchanges are on also for the Republic Now that the Civil War is fifty years away, the new North and the newSouth represent a solid nation Indeed, if every Northern soldier were to die to-day, not one interest or liberty

of this Republic would be permitted to suffer by the sons of the Confederate soldiers, who would defend thenation unto blood as bravely as men born north of Mason and Dixon's line indeed, who fought gallantly for it

in the Cuban war The North has entered upon a new industrial epoch, but the South also is in the midst of itsgreatest industrial movement, and in sight of its enlargement, by reason of the Panama Canal

The Western Continent is not large, but it holds more than half the farm land of the planet, and it is alreadyevident that the United States and Canada, with their free institutions, will indirectly and directly control thethousand millions of people that will soon live between the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and Cape Horn Theone question of the hour is how to make all the coming millions patriots towards their country, scholarstowards the intellect, obedient citizens towards the laws of nature and God Our national peril is Mammonism,and the sordid pursuit of gold Our fathers came hither in pursuit of God and liberty, not gold and territory.Sixty of our present ninety millions of people have entered the earthly scene since the Civil War Our youngmen and women, and the children of foreign born peoples need to open the pages of history, setting forth thegreat men and events of the Anti-Slavery epoch in this land

The time has come for the teachers in the schoolroom and the preachers in their pulpits to assemble the youth

of the nation, and drill them in the history of industrial democracy, and of political liberty If our youth are tomake the twentieth century glorious, they must realize the continuity of our institutions, and often return to thenineteenth century and the Anti-Slavery epoch The phrase, "For God, home and native land," is often on thelips of our teachers Love towards God gives religion; the love of home gives marriage; the love of country,patriotism But patriotism is a fire that must be fed with the fuel of ideas These chapters are written in thebelief that the youth of to-day will find in the history of their fathers a storehouse filled with seed for a worldsowing, an armoury filled with weapons for to-morrow's battle, a library rich with wisdom for the morrow'semergency, a cathedral, bright with memorials of yesterday's heroes, its soldiers and scholars, its statesmen,and above all, its martyred President

NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS

Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N Y.

Contents

I Rise of American Slavery: Growth of the Traffic 11

II Webster and Calhoun: The Battle Line in Array 40

III Garrison and Phillips: Anti-Slavery Agitation 68

IV Charles Sumner: The Appeal to Educated Men 95

V Horace Greeley: The Appeal to the Common People 117

VI Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Brown: The Conflict Precipitated 136

VII Lincoln and Douglas: Influence of the Great Debate 160

VIII Reasons for Secession: Southern Leaders 188

IX Henry Ward Beecher: The Appeal to England 212

X Heroes of Battle: American Soldiers and Sailors 242

XI The Life of the People at Home Who Supported the Soldiers at the Front 263

XII Abraham Lincoln: The Martyred President 288

INDEX 327

I

RISE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY: GROWTH OF THE TRAFFIC

The history of the nineteenth century holds some ten wars that disturbed the nations of the earth, but perhapsour Civil War alone can be fully justified at the bar of intellect and conscience That war was fought, not inthe interest of territory or of national honour, it was fought by the white race for the enfranchisement of theblack race, and to show that a democratic government, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propositionthat all men are created equal, could permanently endure

In retrospect, the Great Rebellion seems the mightiest battle and the most glorious victory in the annals oftime The battle-field was a thousand miles in length; the combatants numbered two million men; the strugglewas protracted over four years; the hillsides of the whole South were made billowy with the country's dead; amillion men were killed or wounded in the two thousand two hundred battles; thousands of gifted boys whomight have permanently enriched the North and South alike, through literature, art or science, were cut off asunfulfilled prophecies in the beginning of their career, and what is more pathetic, another million women,desolate and widowed, remained to look with altered eyes upon an altered world, while alone they walkedtheir Via Dolorosa In the physical realm the black shadow of the sun's eclipse remains but for a few minutes,but through four awful years the nation dwelt in blackness and dreadful night, while fifty more years passed,and the shadow has not yet disappeared fully from the land

Strictly speaking, the Civil War began with the debate between Daniel Webster and Calhoun in 1830 Theseintellectual giants set the battle lines in array in the halls of the Senate The warfare that began with arguments

in Congress was soon transferred to the lyceum and lecture hall, then to the pulpit and press, then to theassembly rooms of State legislatures, until finally it was submitted to the soldiers At last Grant, Sherman andThomas witnessed to the truth of Webster's argument, that the Union is one and inseparable, that it shouldendure now and forever, but the endorsement was written with the sword's point, and in letters of blood Theconflict raged, therefore, for thirty-five years, and some of the most desperate battles were fought not withguns and cannon, but with arguments, in the presence of assembled thousands, who listened to the intellectualattack and defense In their famous debate, Lincoln and Douglas were over against one another like twofortresses, bristling with bayonets, and with cannon shotted to the muzzle

The many millions of people in the United States, born or immigrated here since the Civil War, busied withmany things during this rich, complex and prosperous era, have suffered a grievous loss, through the

weakening of their patriotism Multitudes have forgotten that with great price their fathers bought our

industrial liberty for white and black alike The study of no era, perhaps, is so rewarding to the youth of thecountry as the study of the Anti-Slavery epoch It was an era of intellectual giants and moral heroes Greatmen walked in regiments up and down the land It was the age of our greatest statesmen of the North andSouth, Webster and Calhoun; of our greatest soldiers, Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, and of Leeand Stonewall Jackson It was the era of our greatest orators, Phillips and Beecher; of our greatest editors, led

by Greeley and Raymond; of our greatest poets and scholars, Whittier and Lowell and Emerson; and of ourgreatest President, the Martyr of Emancipation So wonderful are those scenes named Gettysburg,

Appomattox, and the room where the Emancipation Act was signed, that even the most skeptical have felt thatthe issues of liberty and life for millions of slaves justified the entrance of a Divine Figure upon the humanbattle-field This Unseen Leader and Captain of the host had dipped His sword in heaven, and carried a bladethat was red with insufferable wrath against oppression, cruelty and wrong.

Now that fifty years have passed since the Civil War, the events of that conflict have taken on their trueperspective, and movements once clouded have become clear For great men and nations alike, the suggestivehours are the critical hours and epochs That was a critical epoch for Athens, when Demosthenes plead thecause of the republic, and insisted that Athens must defend her liberties, her art, her laws, her social

institutions, and in the spirit of democracy resist the tyrant Philip, who came with gifts in his hands That was

a critical hour for brave little Holland, dreaming her dreams of liberty, when the burghers resisted the

regiments of bloody Alva, and, clinging to the dykes with their finger-tips, fought their way back to the fields,expelled Philip of Spain, and, having no fortresses, lifted up their hands and exclaimed, "These are our

bayonets and walls of defense!" Big with destiny also for this republic was that critical hour when Lincoln, inhis first inaugural, pleaded with the South not to destroy the Union, nor to turn their cannon against the freeinstitutions that seemed "the last, best hope of men." But the eyes of the men of the South were holden, andthey were drunk with passion They lighted the torch that kindled a conflagration making the Southern city awaste and the rich cotton-field a desolation

At the very beginning, the founders and fathers of the nation were under the delusion that it was possible tounite in one land two antagonistic principles, liberty and slavery It has been said that the Republic, founded

in New England, was nothing but an attempt to translate into terms of prose the dreams that haunted the soul

of John Milton his long life through The founders believed that every man must give an account of himself toGod, and because his responsibility was so great, they felt that he must be absolutely free Since no king, nopriest, and no master could give an account for him, he must be self-governing in politics, self-controlling inindustry, and free to go immediately into the presence of God with his penitence and his prayer The fatherssought religious and political freedom, not money or lands But the new temple of liberty was to be for thewhite race alone, and these builders of the new commonwealth never thought of the black man, save as aservant in the house For more than two centuries, therefore, the wheat and the tares grew together in the soil.When the tares began to choke out the wheat, the uprooting of the foul growth became inevitable Perhaps theCivil War was a necessity, for this reason, the disease of slavery had struck in upon the vitals of the nationand the only cure was the surgeon's knife Therefore God raised up soldiers, and anointed them as surgeons,with "the ointment of war, black and sulphurous."

By a remarkable coincidence, the year that brought a slave ship to Jamestown, Virginia, brought the

Mayflower and the Pilgrim fathers to Plymouth Rock It is a singular fact that the star of hope and the orb of

night rose at one and the same hour upon the horizon At first the rich men of London counted the Virginiatobacco a luxury, but the weed soon became a necessity, and the captain of the African ship exchanged oneslave for ten huge bales of tobacco A second cargo of slaves brought even larger dividends to the owners ofthe slave ship Soon the story of the financial returns of the traffic began to inflame the avarice of England,Spain and Portugal The slave trade was exalted to the dignity of commerce in wheat and flour, coal and iron.Just as ships are now built to carry China's tea and silk, India's indigo and spices, so ships were built in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the kidnapping of African slaves, and the sale of these men to thesugar and cotton planters of the West Indies and of America Even the stories of the gold and diamond fields

of South Africa and Alaska have had less power to inflame men's minds than the stories of the black men inthe forests of Africa, every one of whom was good for twenty guineas

The London of 1700 experienced a boom in slave stocks as the London of 1900 in rubber stocks Merchantsand captains, after a few years' absence, returned to London to buy houses, carriages and gold plate, and bytheir political largesses to win the title of baronet, and even seats in the House of Lords This illusion of goldfinally fell upon the throne itself, and King William and Queen Mary lent the traffic royal patronage At thevery time when men in Boston, exultant over the success of their experiment in democracy, were writing

home to London about this ideal republic of God that had been set up at Plymouth, and the orb of libertybegan to flame with light and hope for New England, this other orb began to fling out its rays of sorrow,disease and death across Africa and the southern sands.

At length, in 1713, Queen Anne, in the Treaty of Utrecht, after a long and arduous series of diplomatic

negotiations, secured for the English throne a monopoly of the slave traffic, and the writers of the time spoke

of this treaty as an event that would make the queen's name to be eulogized as long as time should last Buttwo hundred years have reversed the judgment of the civilized world History now recalls Queen Anne'smonopoly of the slave traffic as it recalls the Black Death in England, the era of smallpox in Scotland, forone such treaty is probably equal to two bubonic plagues, or three epidemics of cholera and yellow fever.Finally, an informal agreement was entered upon between the English slave dealers, the Spaniards and

Portuguese, an agreement that was literally a "covenant with death and a compact with hell." The Portuguesebecame the explorers of the interior, the advance agents of the traffic, who reported what tribes had the tallest,strongest men, and the most comely women The Spaniards maintained the slave stations on the coast, andtook over from the Portuguese the gangs of slaves who were chained together and driven down to the coast;the English slave dealers owned the ships, bought the slaves at wholesale, transported the wretches across thesea, and retailed the poor creatures to the planters of the various colonies Between 1620 and 1770 threemillion slaves were driven in gangs down to the African seacoast, and transported to the colonies At this timesome of the greatest houses in London, Lisbon and Madrid were founded, and some of the greatest familynames were established during these one hundred and fifty years when the slave traffic was most prosperous

De Bau thinks that another 250,000 slaves perished during the voyages across the sea For the eighteenthcentury was a century of cruelty as well as gold, of crime and art, of murderous hate and increasing

commerce If the prophet Daniel had been describing the Spain, Portugal and England of that time, he wouldhave portrayed them as an image of mud and gold, but chiefly mud Little wonder that Thomas Jefferson, inhis "Notes on Virginia," treating of the influence and possible consequences of slavery, wrote, "Indeed, Itremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." As England anchored war-ships in the harbour ofShanghai, and forced the opium traffic upon China, so she forced the slave traffic upon the American colonies

by gun and cannon The story of the English kings who crowded slavery upon the South makes up one of theblackest pages in the history of a country that has been like unto a sower who went forth to sow with one handthe good seed of liberty and justice, while with the other she sowed the tares of slavery and oppression.From the very beginning, the climate and the general atmosphere of the North was unfriendly to slavery, just

as the cotton, sugar and indigo, as well as the warm climate of the South encouraged slave labour At first,neither Boston nor New York associated wrong with the custom of buying and using slave labour And when,after a short time, opposition began to develop, this antagonism to slavery was based upon economic, ratherthan upon moral considerations

Jonathan Edwards was our great theologian, but at the very time that Jonathan Edwards was writing his

"Freedom of the Will" and preaching his revival sermons on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he wasthe owner of slaves When that philosopher, whose writings had sent his name into all Europe, died, hebequeathed a favourite slave to his descendants Whitefield was the great evangelist of that era, but Whitefieldduring his visit to the colonies purchased a Southern plantation, stocked it with seventy-five slaves, and when

he died bequeathed it to a relative, whom he characterizes as "an elect lady," who, notwithstanding she was

"elect," was quite willing to derive her livelihood from the sweat of another's brow

And yet even in the Providence plantations, where more slaves were bought and sold than in any other of theNorthern colonies, the traffic soon began to wane The simple fact is that the rigour of the climate and theseverity of the winters of New England made the life of the African brief The slave was the child of a tropicclime, unaccustomed to clothing, and the January snows and the March winds soon developed consumptionand chilled to death the child of the tropics It was found impracticable to use the black man in either theforests or fields, and in a short time slaves were purchased only as domestic servants

But about 1750 the conscience of New England awakened Men in the pulpit took a strong position against thetraffic The Congregational churches of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut declared against slaveryand asked the legislatures to adopt the Jewish law, emancipating all slaves whatsoever at the end of the tenthyear of servitude A little later, slavery was made illegal in all the New England colonies, Pennsylvania atlength remembered William Penn, who had freed all his slaves in his will, while the German churches of thatState began to expel all members who were known to have bought or held a slave When, therefore, theconvention met in Philadelphia, in 1776, preparatory to the Declaration of Independence, the delegates wereable to say that as a whole the Northern colonies had cleansed their borders of the abuse, and had decided tobuild their institutions and civilization upon free labour, as the sure foundation of individual and social

prosperity

But the antagonism to slavery in the Southern colonies was only less pronounced, and this, not because ofeconomic reasons, but because of moral considerations The Southern climate was friendly to cotton andtobacco, indigo and rice These products made heavy demands upon labour, but white labour was unequal tothe intense heat of the Southern summer and workmen were scarce During the revolutions under King

Charles I and Charles II and the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century, England needed every man athome Virginia offered high wages and large land rewards, but it was well-nigh impossible for her to secureimmigrants and the labour she needed In that hour the captain of a slave ship appeared in the House ofBurgesses and offered to supply the need, but the people of Virginia instructed the delegates to the assembly

to protest against the traffic Finally, the colony imposed a duty upon each slave landing, and made the duty

so high as to destroy the profits of the slave trade King George was furious with anger, and sent out a royalproclamation forbidding all interference with the slave traffic under heavy penalty, and affirming that thistrade was "highly beneficial to the colonies, as well as remunerative to the throne." Growing more

antagonistic to slavery, the planters of Fairfax County called a convention at which Washington presided.Later, in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin brought in the resolutions condemning slavery as "a wicked, crueland unjustifiable trade." Soon the leading men of the Southern colonies sent a formal protest to England LordMansfield supported them in a decision that in English countries, governed by English laws, freedom was therule, and slavery illegal, unless the colony, through its assembly, expressly legalized the slave traffic

When the first convention met in Philadelphia, Jefferson included among the articles of indictment againstGeorge the Third this paragraph: "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its mostsacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating andcarrying them into slavery or to incur a miserable death in the transportation thither." This passage, however,was struck out of the Declaration in compliance with the wishes of the delegates from two colonies, whodesired to continue slavery But in 1784 Jefferson reopened the question by reporting an ordinance prohibitingslavery after the year 1800 in the territory that afterwards became Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee andKentucky, as well as the territory north of the Ohio River This anti-slavery clause was lost in the convention

by only a single vote "The voice of a single individual," wrote Jefferson, "would have prevented this

abominable crime But Heaven will not always be silent The friends to the rights of human nature will in theend prevail."

Indeed, in the Southern States up to the very beginning of the Civil War there was a strong anti-slaverysentiment When the first meeting was held in Baltimore to organize the Abolition Society, eighty-five

abolition societies in various counties of Southern States sent delegates to the convention It is a striking factthat the South can claim as much credit for the organization of the Abolition Society as William Lloyd

Garrison and his friends in the North For the real responsibility for slavery does not rest upon Virginia, theCarolinas or Georgia, but upon the mother-land, upon the avarice of the throne, the cupidity of English

merchants and the power of English guns and cannon

By the year 1790, therefore, slavery in the North had either died of inanition, or had been rendered illegal bythe action of State legislatures, and the chapter was closed There are the best of reasons also for believing that

in the South slavery was waning, while the influence of planters who believed free labour more economical

was waxing Suddenly an unexpected event changed the whole situation The commerce of the world restsupon food and clothing The food of the world is in wheat and corn, the clothing in cotton and wool But woolwas so expensive that for the millions in Europe cotton garments were a necessity England had the looms andthe spindles, but she could not secure the cotton, and the Southern planters could not grow it The cotton pod,

as large as a hen's egg, bursts when ripe and the cotton gushes out in a white mass Unfortunately, each podholds eight or ten seeds, each as large as an orange seed To clean a single pound of cotton required a longday's work by a slave The production of cotton was slow and costly, the acreage therefore small, and theprofits slender The South was burdened with debt, the plantations were mortgaged, and in 1792 the outlookfor the cotton planters was very dark, and all hearts were filled with foreboding and fear One winter's nightMrs General Greene, wife of the Revolutionary soldier, was entertaining at dinner a company of planters Inthose days the planters had but one thought how to rid their plantations of their mortgages It happened thatthe conversation turned upon some possible mechanism for cleaning the cotton Mrs Greene turned to herguests, and, reminding Eli Whitney, a young New Englander who was in her home teaching her children, that

he had invented two or three playthings for her children, suggested that he turn his attention to the problem.Young Whitney had no tools, but he soon made them; had no wire, but he drew his own wire, and within afew months he perfected the cotton gin When the cat climbs upon the crate filled with chickens, it thrusts itspaw between the laths and pulls off the feathers, leaving the chicken behind the laths Young Whitney

substituted wires for laths, and a toothed wheel for the cat's paw, and soon pulled all the cotton out at the top,leaving the seeds to drop through a hole in the bottom of the gin Within a year every great planter had acarpenter manufacturing gins for the fields With Whitney's machine one man in a single day could cleanmore cotton than ten negroes could clean in an entire winter Planters annexed wild land, a hundred acres at atime For the first time the South was able to supply all the cotton that England's manufacturers desired Thecities in England awakened to redoubled industry Southern cotton lands jumped from $5 to $50 an acre.Whitney found the South producing 10,000 bales in 1793 Sixty years later it produced 4,000,000 bales.Historians affirm that this single invention added $1,000,000,000 as a free gift to the planters of the South.Although Eli Whitney took out patents, every planter infringed them Whole States organized movements tofight Whitney before the courts In 1808, when his patent expired, he was poorer than when he began Feelingthat the Southern planters had robbed him of the legitimate reward of his invention, Whitney came North andgave himself to the study of firearms He invented what is now known as the Colt's revolver, the Remingtonrifle and the modern machine gun Beginning with the feeling that he had been robbed of his just rights bySouthern planters, Whitney ended by inventing the very weapons that deprived the planters of their slaves andpreserved the Union

But the new prosperity and the increased acreage for cotton in the South created an enormous market forslaves, and soon the sea swarmed with slave ships Prices advanced five hundred per cent, until a slave thathad brought $100 brought $500, and some even $1,000 What made slavery no scourge, but a great religiousmoral blessing? The answer is, the cotton gin and the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote

slavery, to spread it, and to use its labour For Eli Whitney had made cotton to be king Cotton encouragedslavery; slavery at last threatened the Union and so brought on the Civil War

The value of the slave as an economic machine depended upon his physique, health and general endurance.The slave hunters were Portuguese, Spaniards and Arabs, who drove the negroes in gangs down to the coast,where they were loaded upon the slave ships When the trade was brisk and prices high, the hold of the shipwas crowded to suffocation, and intense suffering was inevitable Landing at Savannah or Charleston, Mobile

or New Orleans, the slaves were sold at wholesale, in the auction place Later, the slave dealer drove them ingangs through the villages, where they were sold at retail The cost of a slave varied with the price of cotton

Of the three million one hundred thousand slaves living in the South in 1850, one million eight hundredthousand were raising cotton That was the great export, the basis of prosperity So great was the demand inEngland for Southern cotton that profits were enormous The Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's timepublished a list of forty Southern planters in Louisiana and Mississippi One of them had five hundred negroes

and sold the cotton from his plantation at a net profit of one hundred thousand dollars Each negro, therefore,netted his master that year five hundred dollars The working life of a slave was short, scarcely more thanseven years, and for that reason the ablest negro was never worth more than from a thousand to twelve

at certain intervals, but the law remained a dead letter Other states, by legal enactment, fixed the amount ofmeal that should be given to slaves

When Fanny Kemble, the English actress, retired from the stage, it was to marry a Southern planter, and herautobiography and private letters throw a flood of light upon the life of the slaves upon a typical plantation inthe cotton States She says that the planter expected that about once in seven years he must buy a new set ofhands; that the slaves did little in the winter, but they worked fifteen hours a day in the spring, and ofteneighteen hours a day in the summer until the cotton was picked She adds that the negro children used to begher for a taste of meat, just as English children plead for a little candy She states that on her husband's estateslave breeding was most important and remunerative, and that the increase and the young slaves sold made itpossible for the plantation to pay its interest "Every negro child born was worth two hundred dollars themoment it drew breath."

It was this separation of families that touched the heart of Fanny Kemble Butler, and stirred the indignation ofHarriet Martineau, who at the end of her year at the South wrote that she would rather walk through a

penitentiary or a lunatic asylum than through the slave quarters that stood in the rear of the great house whereshe was entertained It is this element that explains the statement of John Randolph of Virginia Conversingone evening about the notable orations to which he had listened, the great lawyer said that the most eloquentwords he had ever heard were "spoken on the auction block by a slave mother." It seemed that she pleadedwith the auctioneer and the spectators not to separate her from her children and her husband, and she madethese men, who were trafficking in human life, realize the meaning of Christ's words, "Woe unto him thatdoth offend one of My little ones; it were better for him that a millstone were placed about his neck and that

he were cast into the depths of the sea."

In this era of industrial education for the coloured race it is interesting to note that five of the slave Statesimposed heavy penalties upon any one who should teach the slaves to read or write Virginia, however,permitted the owner to teach his slave in the interest of better management of the plantation North Carolinafinally consented to arithmetic After 1831 and the Nat Turner negro insurrection more stringent laws werepassed to prevent the slaves learning how to read, lest they chance upon abolition documents A Georgianplanter said that "The very slightest amount of education impairs their value as slaves, for it instantly destroystheir contentedness; and since you do not contemplate changing their condition, it is surely doing them an illservice to destroy their acquiescence in it." In spite of the law, however, domestic servants were frequentlytaught to read Frederick Douglass found a teacher in his mistress, where he was held as a domestic slave, andDouglass in turn taught his fellow slaves on the plantation by stealth The advertisements of slaves thatmention the slave's ability to read and cipher, as a reason for special value, prove that the more intelligentslaves had at least the rudiments of knowledge Olmstead, in his "Cotton Kingdom," says he visited a

plantation in Mississippi, where one of the negroes had, with the full permission of his master, taught all hisfellows how to read

An examination of the influence of slavery upon the poorer whites shows that two-thirds of the white

population suffered hardly less than did the coloured people The slaveholding class formed an aristocracy,who dominated and ruled as lords When the war broke out, there were about four hundred thousand

slave-holders, and nine and a half million people But of these four hundred thousand slave-holders, onlyabout eight thousand owned more than fifty slaves each, and it was this mere handful who lived in splendidhomes, surrounded with luxury, beauty, and refinement Travellers who have thrown the veil of romance andenchantment about the Southern home, with a great house embowered in magnolia trees, its rooms stored withart treasures, its walls lined with marbles and bronzes, and its banqueting room at night crowded with

beautiful women and handsome men these travellers speak of what was as a matter of fact exceptional Wemust remember that these men represented a small aristocracy; that their mode of life, so charmingly pictured

by many accomplished writers, was the life of a select group, and that the great slave plantations numberednot more than eight thousand in that vast area

From the hour of the organization of the Abolition Society, these Southern planters assumed an aggressiveposition Their editors, politicians and lawyers began to publish briefs, in support of the peculiar institution.The usual argument began with ridicule of Thomas Jefferson's famous statement that all men are born equal.The second argument was an economic one, based on the value of the slaves Three million slaves wouldaverage a value of five hundred dollars each, and this meant a billion five hundred millions of property, thathad to be considered as so much property in ships, factories, engines, reapers, pastures, meadows, herds andflocks All planters invoked the words of Moses, permitting the Hebrews to hold slaves, and therefore

exhibiting slavery as a divine institution Statesmen justified the Fugitive Slave Law by triumphantly quotingPaul's letter, sending Onesimus back to his rich master, Philemon Jefferson Davis rested his argument uponthe curse that God pronounced upon Canaan, and asserted that slavery was established by a decree of

Almighty God and that through the portal of slavery alone the descendant of the graceless son of Noah enteredthe temple of civilization Once a year the Southern minister preached from the text, "Cursed be Canaan, theson of Ham A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."

A few scholars grounded themselves on the scientific argument These men held that the black man wasseparated from the Saxon by a great chasm, that if freed he was not equal to self-government, that he was amere child when placed in competition with the white man, and that the strong owed it to the weak, that it wasthe duty of every superior man to take charge of the inferior, and impose government from without

The politician had a stronger argument in defense of slavery He held that the nation that was strong,

educated, prosperous, with an army and navy, had not only the right but the duty of imposing governmentupon a colony that was ignorant, poor, and degraded, and that this example of the nation governing a colony

by force of arms proved that the white man, as master, should impose government from without upon theslave

Not until years after the war was over did men fully realize that slavery was weight and free labour wings tothe people The North believed that the working man should be free, that he should be educated in the publicschools, and that the only way to increase his wage was to increase his intelligence Each new knowledge,therefore, brought a new economic hunger, and made the free labourer a good buyer in the market, thussupporting factories and shops Contrariwise the slave was a poor buyer The negro picking cotton out of thepod had few wants, one garment about his loins, a pone of corn bread, a husk mattress, no more For thatreason the slave starved the factory and shop Invention in the South perished Every attempt to found afactory was attended with failure Of necessity, the North grew steadily richer straight through the war, whilethe South grew steadily poorer The war closed with Northern factories and shops and trade at the high tide ofprosperity The free working man asked many forms of clothing for the body, books and magazines for themind, pictures for the walls, sewing-machine, the reed organ, every conceivable comfort and convenience forhis family, and these many forms of hunger nourished invention, made the towns centres of manufacturinglife, and built a rich nation The Northern working man put his head into his task, the slave, his heel When thewar was over, the South was like a crushed egg, impoverished by slavery The peculiar institution had served

well eight thousand slave planters, each of whom owned more than fifty slaves But slavery had starved theremaining millions.

Now that the new era has come, no statesman, no scholar, no editor, has ever indicted slavery as the costliestpossible form of production, with half the skill, eloquence and conviction of Southern writers What Northernmen believe, the Southerner knows Unconsciously the Southern youth was handicapped in the commercialrace His Northern brother was an athlete, stripped to the skin, while he dragged a fetter, invisible That heshould have come so near to winning the race is a tribute to his courage, endurance, and a mental resource thatcan never be praised too highly If the rest of the world could only fight for good causes, with half the ability,chivalry and bravery that the South fought for a bad economic system, the world would soon enter upon themillennium

II

WEBSTER AND CALHOUN: THE BATTLE LINE IN ARRAY

The year was 1830; the scene, the Senate Chamber in Washington; the combatants, Daniel Webster and John

C Calhoun Two hundred and ten years had now passed since the ship of liberty had come to New England,and the ship of slavery had landed in Virginia These centuries had given ample time for the development ofthe real genius and influence of liberty and free labour in the civilization of the North, and of slave labourupon the institutions of the South Little by little the merchants, manufacturers and professional classes of theNorth had come to feel that a free and educated working class produces wealth more cheaply and rapidly thanslave labour, and that the working people of America must be educated and free, if they were to compete withthe free working people of Great Britain and Europe Contrariwise, the South believed that manual labour was

a task for slaves, that cotton, rice and sugar were produced more rapidly by slave labour than by free labour.The Southern civilization was built on the plan of producing raw cotton, and exchanging it for manufacturedgoods It did not escape the notice of Southern leaders, however, that under free labour the North had nearlydouble the population and wealth of the South But Senator Hayne explained this by saying that the biggestnations had never been the greatest, and that the renowned peoples had been like Athens, small states, electand patrician

But darkness and light, summer and winter, liberty and slavery cannot exist side by side, in peace and

tranquility Unite hydrogen and chlorine, and the chemist has an explosion that takes off the roof of the house.And because liberty and slavery were antagonistic, and mutually destructive, whenever the representatives ofboth came together there was inevitably an explosion either on the platform or through the press It could nothave been otherwise In Palestine two opposing civilizations came into collision, one the Hebrew and theother the Philistine, and the Philistine went down In Holland the Dutchmen, working towards democracy,collided with the Spaniards, working towards autocracy, and the Spaniard went down In England, Hampdenand Pym came into collision with Charles the First and Archbishop Laud The two leaders of democracywished to increase the privileges of the common people by diffusing property, liberty, office and honours,while Charles the First and Laud wished to lessen the powers of the people, and to increase the privileges ofthe throne; democracy won, and autocracy lost And now in this republic, a civilization based upon the

freedom and education of the working classes came into collision with the Southern civilization, based uponignorant slave labour, and there were upheavals and political outbreaks everywhere In vain Abraham tried tohouse Isaac, the son of the free woman, and Ishmael, the son of the slave woman, under one and the sameroof Slowly the men in the North and the manufacturers of England came to feel that slavery was interferingwith the commerce and prosperity, not simply of the people of this republic, but of Europe also Slavery was

an economic obstruction, lying directly in the path of progress

The two men who marked out the lines of struggle and precipitated the conflict were Daniel Webster and John

C Calhoun Daniel Webster, the defender of the Constitution, affirmed that the Union was one and

inseparable, now and forever John C Calhoun said, "The State is sovereign and supreme, and the Union

secondary." In effect Webster said, "The central government is the sun, and the States are planets, movinground about the central orb." Calhoun answered, "There is no central sun in our political system, but onlyplanets, each revolving in any orbit it elects for itself." Webster said, "In the cosmic and political system alike,

it is the central sun that causes the States like planets to move in order and harmony, without collision, andwith rich harvests." Calhoun answered that every planet should be its own sun, and, if it choose, be a runawayorb, and collide with whom it will

Finally, the argument of Webster and Calhoun was submitted to armies Grant and Sherman said, "Webster isright; the Union must be maintained." Lee and Jackson answered, "Calhoun is right; the Union must go, andthe sovereign State remain." At Bull Run, Calhoun's doctrine seemed to be in the ascendancy; at Gettysburg,Webster's argument seemed to have the more cogency; at Appomattox Lee withdrew his support from

Calhoun, and allowed Daniel Webster's plea that the Union must abide and be now and forever, one andinseparable

The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest political genius our country has produced

He was born in New Hampshire, in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of thenewly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory His father belonged to the farmer class,who read by night and brooded upon his reading by day In an era of privation for the colonists, by sterndenial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College While still a young man,Daniel Webster leaped into fame by a single argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, andbecame the competitor of jurists like Rufus Choate His orations on "Bunker Hill Monument," the "Landing ofthe Pilgrim Fathers," the "Death of Adams and Jefferson," are among the really sublime passages in thehistory of eloquence In the Girard College case Webster established the point that Christianity is a part of thecommon law of the land Criminal lawyers quote Webster's argument in the great Knapp murder trial, that thevoice of conscience is the voice of God, as the world's best statement of the moral imperative, and the

automatic judgment seat God has set up in the city of man's soul

Even from the physical view-point he deserved his epithet, "the godlike Daniel." Not so tall as Calhoun orClay, he was more solidly built than either of the Southern orators His head was so large and beautiful, thatCrawford, the sculptor, thought Webster his ideal model for a statue of Jupiter His skin was a deep bronzeand copper hue, but when excited his face became luminous, and translucent as a lamp of alabaster Hisopponents say that Webster had the finest vocal instrument of his generation, and that he was a master of allpossible effects through speech His voice was mellow and sweet, with an extraordinary range, extendingfrom the ringing clarion tenor note, to the bass of a deep-toned organ The historian tells us "Webster had thefaculty of magnifying a word into such prodigious volume that it was dropped from his lips as a great bouldermight drop into the sea, and it jarred the Senate Chamber like a clap of thunder." The Kentucky lawyer,Thomas Marshall, said when Webster came to his peroration in his reply to Hayne, that he "listened as to oneinspired." He finally thought he saw a halo around the orator's head, like the one seen in the old masters'depictions of saints

Webster's opponent was John C Calhoun, senator from South Carolina Calhoun was the first Southernstatesman to mark out the lines of battle and indicate the methods of attack and defense for the supporters ofslavery Graduating with high honours at Yale, in the class of 1802, Calhoun studied law for three years atLitchfield, Connecticut, and then decided to enter politics In the lecture halls and class rooms, he stood at thevery forefront, as orator and logician One day, in Yale College, Calhoun delivered a speech on an apparentlyabsurd proposition, which he defended with great acuteness When he had finished, President Dwight said,

"Calhoun, that is a brilliant piece of logic, and if I ever want any one to prove that shad grow upon apple trees,

I shall appoint you."

Upon the lines of broad patriotism, with reference to the interests of the country as a whole, Calhoun

supported the war with England in 1812 From city to city the young lawyer journeyed, travelling all the wayfrom Charleston and Savannah to Boston and Portland, urging the right and the duty of the Republic to resist

England's claim to the right of search of American vessels Calhoun was widely read in history, he was full ofintense patriotism, his arguments were clear, he had unity, order and movement in his thinking, he had the art

of putting things, and was a perfect master of his audience At thirty years of age Calhoun was as popular inBoston as he was later in Savannah and Charleston In 1824, he was elected Vice-President, the only man onthe ticket to be chosen by popular vote From that hour until his death he remained a member of the

triumvirate that controlled the destinies of the Republic, sharing honours with Henry Clay and Daniel

Webster

In the South Calhoun was all but idolized He was tall and slender of person, refined and elegant in manners,carrying with him great personal charm He was a puritan in his morals, maintained a spotless reputation, andescaped all criticism with reference to private life that was visited upon his competitors Many a Northern manwho went to Congress hating the very name of Calhoun, the arch-secessionist, was compelled to confess that

he had to steel his heart against the charm of Calhoun's speech and personality The simplicity of his

character, the clearness of his thinking, the sincerity and moral earnestness of his nature, all united to lend himthe influence that he exerted over men like Oliver Dyer, Webster's friend, who said of Calhoun, "He was byall odds the most fascinating man in private intercourse that I have ever met."

When Webster and Clay came into collision, it was over a subject apparently far removed from the bondage

of slaves If slavery was the spark that fired the magazine for the great explosion in 1861, the tariff furnishedthe powder The South produced raw material, and imported all her tools, comforts and conveniences, whilethe North had free labour, and her educated working classes were good purchasers, and lent generous support

to manufacturers Exporting its raw cotton to England, the South sent its leaders to Congress to ask for freetrade with foreign countries, or in any event, a lower tariff The Northern manufacturers sent their leaders toCongress to ask for protection against foreign woollens, cottons, and all English tools and French silks, andluxuries Therefore the interests of the North antagonized the interests of the South In the South the

anti-slavery sentiment had disappeared because of Whitney's cotton gin As Beecher wittily put it in hisManchester speech: "Slaves that before had been worth three to four hundred dollars began to be worth sixhundred That knocked away one-third of adherence to the moral law Then they became worth seven hundreddollars, and half the law went; then eight or nine hundred dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law;then one thousand or twelve hundred dollars, and slavery became one of the beatitudes."

The Southern leaders, therefore, wanted free trade with England; the North urged protection, in the interest ofthe whole country, rather than a group of States The South believed that Northern politics was selfish; theNorth believed that the Southern leaders were building up English manufacturers, and weakening their owncountry! The people became one great debating club, and the dispute waxed more bitter day by day Everynew event seemed to widen the breach The war of the Revolution made for unity between North and South,just as the hammer welds together two pieces of red hot iron The soldiers of the Revolution had marchedunder the same flag, supported the same Declaration of Independence, and fought for the same Constitution.Slavery in the North had died through inanition, and during the eighteenth century in the South also slaveryseemed in process of extinction But now, in 1830, slavery had become a great source of immeasurable wealth

to the South, just as manufacturing had built up the prosperity of the North

The tariff discussion came to a climax in 1828, through the passing of a customs act, known as the Tariff ofAbominations Sparks falling on ice carry no peril, but sparks falling on the dry prairie cause conflagrations.The news of the passing of the protective tariff created intense excitement in South Carolina Public meetingswere called in all the towns in the land, and protests were made against the execution of the new law

Legislators in the State capital, orators on the platform, editors through their columns, urged nullification.There were two reasons for this growing hostility to protection on the part of the citizens of Calhoun's State;first the belief that as England was the largest purchaser of cotton, it was to South Carolina's best interest tohave English goods brought in free; second the conviction that the tariff was a strictly sectional movement inthe interest of the manufacturing North, as opposed to the South with her raw cotton and slave labour

As a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1828 on the same ticket as General Jackson, Calhoun took nodefinite step until after the election, when he published a paper showing the evil which the protective tariffwas doing the Southern states, and asserting the right to interpose a veto In January, 1830, having brokenwith Jackson and abandoned all hope of later obtaining the presidency by his aid, Calhoun decided to test thetheory of nullification upon the national theatre Accordingly, under his direction, Senator Hayne inserted inhis speech on the Foote Resolution on the public lands the defense of what was to be known later as the SouthCarolina Doctrine, that, if a State considered a law of Congress unconstitutional (as South Carolina assertedthe recent tariff act to be) the State had the right to nullify the law, and, if obedience was sought to be

enforced, the right to secede from the Union

His position has been stated by no one so clearly as by himself, for he spent the next three years perfectingand elaborating his argument As the basis of his structure he employed a distinction between "a nation" and

"a union." England was a nation the United States was a union Russia, Austria and Turkey were

nations this republic a union of sovereign states Prussia was presided over by a king and was a nation theUnited States was a republic and the citizens ruled themselves Calhoun distinguished also between

sovereignty and government; sovereignty is a birthright, a natural and inalienable right vouchsafed by God;government is an artificial right established by law Sovereignty is an inexpungable and inherent privilege;government is a secondary and artificial privilege When any sovereign State is injured, it has not only theright but the duty to withdraw from the compact that has been broken The popular notion is that this idea of

Secession was originated by Calhoun and was a South Carolina heresy; as a matter of fact, it was first

presented in Congress by Josiah Quincy, and should be called "A Massachusetts heresy."

In 1811, as one of the results of the purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson, a bill had been offered providing forthe reception of the State of Orleans into the Union The people of New Orleans spoke the French language,lived under the code of Napoleon, were monarchial in their sympathy, and Quincy opposed the bill, just asmany men to-day would oppose the reception into the Union of the Philippines, the Hawaiians or the PortoRicans Mr Quincy declared that if Orleans were admitted, the several States would be freed from the federalbonds and that "as it will be the right of all States, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely forseparation, amicably if they can, violently if they must." When the speaker ruled out of order these remarks,Quincy appealed, and the House of Representatives sustained his appeal by a vote of fifty-six to fifty-three.Congress, under the lead of Massachusetts, went on record that "it was permissible to discuss a dissolution ofthe Union, amicably if we can forcibly if we must."

Two years later, Henry Clay taunted the Massachusetts leaders with this threat to dismember the Union In

1844, Charles Francis Adams, in a speech opposing the annexation of Texas, affirmed the right of the

Northern States to dissolve the Union Even Charles Sumner and Horace Greeley held the same views in

1861 The editor was anxious to "let the erring sisters go," believing that the withdrawal was parliamentary;while Charles Sumner said: "If they will only go, we will build a bridge of gold for them to go over on."

But it was Calhoun who carried the doctrine of Nullification to its full development, and who worked out the

theory of sovereignty In the debate with Webster, on the Force Bill, he stated his argument as follows: "Thepeople of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of States and not of individuals; that it was formed by theStates, and that the citizens of the several States were bound to it through the acts of their several States; thateach State ratified the Constitution for itself, and that it was only by such ratification of the States that anyobligation was imposed upon its citizens On this principle the people of the State [South Carolina] havedeclared by the ordinance that the Acts of Congress which imposed duties under the authority to lay imposts,were acts not for revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but for protection, and therefore null and void."

"The terms union, federal, united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of States Thesovereignty is in the several States, and our system is a union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under aconstitutional compact, and not of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the United States."His attitude towards slavery is illustrated by the remarks he delivered in the Senate "This agitation has

produced one happy effect at least; it has compelled us of the South to look into the nature and character ofthis great institution of slavery, and correct many false impressions that even we had entertained in relation to

it Many in the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil That folly and delusion are gone Wesee it now in its true light, and regard it as a most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world It isimpossible with us that the conflict can take place between labour and capital, which makes it so difficult toestablish and maintain free institutions in all wealthy and highly civilized nations, where such institutions asours do not exist."

Calhoun's attempt to have his doctrine set forth on the floor of the Senate Chamber met a crushing blow.When the hour came, he chose, to present his view, Hayne of South Carolina, who defended the doctrine ofnullification with great brilliancy and energy Hayne took the ground that nullification was the old viewalways held by Virginia, that it was the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson, and had been urged by Josiah Quincy ofMassachusetts itself He was a most gifted orator After a century of preparation, at length slavery had chosenits strategic position and drawn the battle line From that moment it was certain that slavery must go, or thatthe Union must go A feeling of apprehension spread over the land Fear fell upon the hearts of the people.The one question of the hour was whether Webster could answer the Southern orator and sweep away the fogwith which Hayne had enveloped the discussion, and make the old Constitution stand out as firm as a

mountain, with principles as bright as the stars

By universal consent Webster's reply is our finest example of forensic eloquence The essence of the argumentwas the right of the majority to control the minority That one State could nullify and secede whenever themajority outvoted it, practically destroyed the jury system which is embedded in Saxon history, destroyed theright of the majority of the aldermen to control the great city, destroyed the right of the majority of the

supreme justices to make their decision Webster's argument crushed the doctrine of secession, and made theRepublic a nation Thus Calhoun and Webster marked out the line of battle, for when the men in gray and themen in blue met at Gettysburg and Appomattox it was to determine whether Calhoun or Webster was right.Grant's final victory simply stamped with a seal of blood the great charter that Webster's genius had

in glowing panorama, and then it was easy, if I wanted a thunderbolt, to reach out and take it, as it wentsmoking by." When Lyman Beecher had read Webster's reply to Hayne, he turned to a friend and exclaimed,

"It makes me think of a red-hot cannon-ball going through a bucket of empty egg-shells."

From that hour patriotism rose like a flood For two generations the reply has been to Americans what

Demosthenes on the Crown was to the Athenians Webster placed the nation above the union, made theNation, in its constitutionally specified sphere of action, sovereign and primary, the States secondary andsubordinate He thus made possible a world-wide victory for free institutions, by which, to-day, democracyand self-government are making thrones totter and tyrants tremble, and giving us the assurance that no

government is so stable as a government conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men arefree and equal Webster made logical use of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."The soldiers of Gettysburg exhibited their willingness to defend such a government, to live for free

institutions, and if necessary to die for them

Now that long time has passed, Southerners and Northerners alike concede that Calhoun made three mistakes

He fought against progress and civilization that has destroyed slavery on moral grounds He also failed to seethat slavery was the worst possible system of production, for if the South produced under slavery 4,000,000bales of cotton in 1861, now that the coloured man is free she produces 15,000,000 bales of cotton per year

His theory of the right of the minority as a sovereign right of secession has broken down at the bar of

civilization If South Carolina or any State has the right to withdraw, whenever the majority of other Statesoutvote it, it means that the minority always has a right to disobey the majority, which means not simply thewithdrawal of the one State from the many States, but later, the withdrawal of a few counties from a majority

of the counties in that State, giving an endless series of confusions If any single doctrine is established amongcivilized nations to-day it is this one, under democratic institutions the right of the majority to rule

Three years later Webster once more marked out the basis of the North's position for all time in a debate withCalhoun himself Without the magnificent flights of eloquence which distinguished the Reply to Hayne, thisspeech of February 16, 1833, was filled with close and powerful reasoning Once and for all he maintained:

"1 That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, confederacy, or compact between the people ofthe several States, in their sovereign capacities, but a government proper, founded on the adoption of thepeople, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals

"2 That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that nothing can dissolve them but

revolution And that consequently there can be no such thing as secession without revolution."

The importance of that argument in the history of our country cannot be overestimated As James Ford

Rhodes has put it: "The justification alleged by the South for her secession in 1861 was based on the

principles enunciated by Calhoun; the cause was slavery Had there been no slavery, the Calhoun theory of theConstitution would never have been propounded, or had it been, it would have been crushed beyond

resurrection by Webster's speeches of 1830 and 1833 The South could not in 1861 justify her right to

revolution, for there was no oppression nor invalidation of rights She could, however, proclaim to the

civilized world what was true, that she went to war to extend slavery Her defense therefore is that she madethe contest for her constitutional rights, and this attempted vindication is founded on the Calhoun theory Onthe other hand, the ideas of Webster waxed strong with the years; and the Northern people, thoroughly imbuedwith these sentiments, and holding them as sacred truths, could not do otherwise than resist the

dismemberment of the Union."

The great crisis that broke Mr Webster's health and perhaps his heart came through a misunderstanding In

1850 the discussion over the Wilmot proviso was stirring the Senate; Henry Clay had brought in his series ofcompromise resolutions, based on the sober belief that the Union was in imminent danger, and that once againthe skillful hand that had penned the Missouri Compromise might turn the country back into the path of peaceand prosperity Calhoun, the second of the great Triumvirate, was already within a month of death Too weak

to read his speech, he was wheeled into the Senate Chamber, to sit with closed eyes while his last haughty,arrogant defense of the South's rights was read by Senator Mason But the greatest of them all was yet tospeak Webster had the foresight of Civil War, with rivers of blood, and a man on horseback Influenced bywhat we now see was the broadest patriotism, he delivered his "Seventh of March Speech," the openingwords of which disclose a motive and a purpose too often overlooked by his critics "I speak to-day for thepreservation of the Union 'Hear me for my cause.'" Briefly, his position was this: that the Union was

primary, dealing with the liberties of fifty and later one hundred millions of people, white men as well asblack, and that the slavery question was secondary, involving an artificial, less important and less permanentinstitution He discussed slavery from the view-point of history, with arguments of the philosopher rather thanthose of the orator He defended the compromise measures, with their clause in favour of strict enforcement ofthe Fugitive Slave Law, on the ground that the Government was solemnly pledged by law and contract, and,indeed, "had been pledged to it again and again." He closed with that famous paragraph demonstrating theimpossibility of peaceable secession "Sir, he who sees these States now revolving in harmony around acommon centre, and expects them to quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour

to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space,

without causing the wreck of the universe."

But he had defended the Fugitive Slave Law! Therefore Abolitionists burned Webster in effigy WendellPhillips called him a second Judas Iscariot Whittier wrote "Ichabod" across his forehead Horace Manndescribed him as a "fallen star Lucifer descending from heaven!" Every arrow was barbed and poisoned.Webster suffered like a great eagle with a dart through its heart, beating its bloody wings upward through thepathless air.

But now that long time has passed, thoughtful men realize that Webster had studied the fundamental questionmore deeply, knew the facts better, and saw clearer than his detractors It is true that he erred when he

criticized the Abolitionists on the ground that in the last twenty years they had "produced nothing good orvaluable," that his words were chosen in a way that irritated the North unduly, and, more important still, that

in his remarks on the Fugitive Slave Law he swerved from the broad statesmanship which distinguished therest of the speech But twelve years later Abraham Lincoln read Daniel Webster's Seventh of March Speech,and said Webster was right and Boston was wrong Lincoln put Webster's position into his letter to Greeley:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery If Icould save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing all theslaves, I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would also dothat What I do about slavery I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear I forbearbecause I do not believe it would help to save the Union." And to-day, after sixty years, our foremost writersare agreeing that "from the historical view-point Webster's position was one of the highest statesmanship."But the recognition of Webster unfortunately came too late

As time passed Webster felt more and more keenly the injustice done him Bitterness poisoned his days, andsorrow shortened his life When the autumn came, he made ready for the end, knowing he would not surviveanother winter One October morning Webster said to his physician, "I shall die to-night." The physician, anold friend, answered, "You are right, sir." When the twilight fell, and all had gathered about his bedside, Mr.Webster, in a tone that could be heard throughout the house, slowly uttered these words, "My general wish onearth has been to do my Master's will That there is a God, all must acknowledge I see Him in all thesewondrous works, Himself how wondrous! What would be the condition of any of us if we had not the hope ofimmortality? What ground is there to rest upon but the Gospel? There were scattered hopes of the immortality

of the soul, especially among the Jews The Jews believed in a spiritual origin of creation; the Romans neverreached it; the Greeks never reached it It is a tradition that communication was made to the Jews by GodHimself through Moses There were intimations crepuscular, but but but thank God! the Gospel of JesusChrist brought immortality to light, rescued it, brought it to light."

Then, while all knelt in his death chamber and wept, Webster, in a strong, firm voice, repeated the whole ofthe Lord's Prayer, closing with these words: "Peace on earth and good will to men That is the happiness, theessence good will to men." And so the defender of the Constitution, the greatest reasoner on political matters

of the Republic, fell upon death

* * * * *

Reflecting upon Webster's unconscious influence as set forth in the words, "I still live," one of his eulogistssays that when Rufus Choate took ship for that port where he died, a friend exclaimed: "You will be here ayear hence." "Sir," said the lawyer, "I shall be here a hundred years hence, and a thousand years hence." Withhis biographer let us also believe that Daniel Webster is still here; that he watches with intense interest thespread of democracy; that he now perceives our free institutions extending their influence around the globe,beneficently victorious in many a foreign state; that he rejoices as he beholds "the gorgeous ensign of theRepublic, now known and honoured throughout the world, bearing that sentiment dear to every true Americanheart, liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

III

GARRISON AND PHILLIPS: ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION

In retrospect, historians make a large place for the eloquence of the anti-slavery epoch, as a force explainingthe abolition movement Every great movement must have its advocate and voice Garrison was the pen forabolition, Emerson its philosopher, Greeley its editor, and in Wendell Phillips abolition had its advocate.Political kings are oftentimes artificial kings The orator is God's natural king, divinely enthroned Back of alleloquence is a great soul, a great cause and a great peril Our history holds three supreme moments in the story

of eloquence the hour of Patrick Henry's speech at Williamsburg, Wendell Phillips' at Faneuil Hall andLincoln's at Gettysburg The great hour and the great crisis, the great cause and the great man, all met andmelted together at a psychologic moment In retrospect Phillips seems like a special gift of God to the

anti-slavery period Webster had more weight and majesty, Everett a higher polish, Douglas more pathos,Beecher was more of an embodied thunder-storm, but John Bright was probably right when he pronouncedWendell Phillips one of the first orators of his century, or of any century

The man back of Wendell Phillips and the abolition movement was William Lloyd Garrison This reformerbegan his career in 1825, as a practical printer and occasional writer of articles for the daily press AmongGarrison's friends were two Quakers, one a young farmer, John Greenleaf Whittier; the other was BenjaminLundy, who for several years had spent his time and fortune protesting against the slave traffic Lundy hadvisited Hayti, to examine the conditions of negro life there, had returned to Baltimore, where he had beenbrutally beaten by a slave dealer, and had finally come to Boston to test out the anti-slavery sentiment in NewEngland He held a meeting in a Baptist church, only to have it broken up by the pastor, who refused to allowLundy to continue his remarks, on the ground that his position could only be offensive to the South, andtherefore dangerous But Lundy succeeded in having a committee appointed to consider the problem, andyoung Garrison was one of its members A few months later, Garrison was made the editor of a journal inBedford, where he began to advance more and more radical theories, until a rival editor was irritated to thepoint of charging him with "the pert loquacity of a blue jay." But Garrison's fidelity to his own convictions,and his courage in airing them in public, had won the respect of the Quaker enthusiast, Lundy, and the oldman walked all the way from Baltimore to Bedford to ask Garrison to join him in his work of agitation Ayear later the two men, one old and discouraged, the other young and hopeful, both being practically

penniless, started work in Baltimore Troubles came thick and fast The slave dealer who had beaten Lundynow attacked young Garrison Carelessly worded criticisms of a Northern slave dealer from Garrison's owntown of Newburyport led to a suit for libel, and a fine of fifty dollars; neither man could raise the money topay the fine, and Garrison went to jail for forty-nine days But the youth was full of courage and faith, and in

1831 we find him once more in Boston, starting a new paper, that was, if possible, more radical than ever

In this second venture he was alone, his office was a garret, his only helper a negro boy whom he had freed

His paper was called the Liberator, and the first edition appeared in January, 1831 Garrison registered his

sublime vow in his opening editorial: "I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice I am inearnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard." Hisbattle cry was "Immediate, unconditional emancipation on the soil."

No movement that wrought so great a national convulsion ever had a more feeble origin The Revolutionaryfathers had three million colonists as supporters The leaders of the Home Rule movement had four millions

of Irishmen to back them Cobden and Bright were supported and cheered on by the manufacturers of CentralEngland But young Garrison stood alone, with empty hands, a slave boy to support, a hand-press printing asheet twelve inches square, never knowing where the money for the next edition was to come from His mottowas "Our country is the world, and our countrymen all men, black or white." The genius of his message wasunmistakable: "Is slavery wrong anywhere? Then it is wrong everywhere Was it wrong once in Palestine?Then it is wrong in all lands Is a wrongdoer bound to do right at any time? Then he is bound to do rightinstantly." He distributed his sheets among the merchants of Boston Beacon Street shook with laughter, for anew Don Quixote had arisen But from the first the South was alarmed, for that little sheet from the

printing-press fell upon the South like the stroke and tread of armed men

The Liberator soon brought friends to this unknown youth But in August of this same year, 1831, an event

occurred which lifted Garrison, almost without his being aware of it, into truly national prominence Thiswas the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia, a negro uprising under the leadership of a genuine African slavewho knew the Bible by heart, who claimed to have communication with the Holy Spirit, and who finallyemployed an eclipse of the sun as a sign to his followers that they were to arise and slay their masters Themassacre which resulted lasted forty-eight hours, and sixty-one white people on the neighbouring plantationslost their lives Retribution followed swiftly, and where the slightest suspicion of guilt was to be found,negroes were shot at sight or burned against the nearest tree Southampton County saw a veritable reign ofterror A storm of indignation swept over the South; thousands of slave owners living on their great estates,miles from the nearest military station, feared themselves victims of a servile insurrection The cause of the

uprising was at once sought for, and a hundred writers laid the blame at the door of the Boston Liberator.

Garrison was indicted for felony in North Carolina The legislature of Georgia offered a reward for $5,000 toany one who would kidnap him and deliver his body within the limits of the state With one voice the entire

South cried out that the Liberator must be suppressed.

Later it became clear that Garrison's part in the Nat Turner rebellion was nil The Liberator had not a single

subscriber in the South; Nat Turner had never seen a copy of the paper, and Garrison had been specific in hisstatements that he did not believe in active resistance to authority, or in the use of force of any kind But thestorm had broken, and Garrison had to fight his way through it

Even in Boston Garrison had to face the mob, and meet the scorn of the ruling classes of the city His

movement had no popular support, in the true sense of the word, as it had twenty years later, when WendellPhillips led the forces of abolition Cotton was king, and the fear of losing the Southern trade sent the

mercantile classes into a panic of fear Garrison's enemies were by no means confined to the South He waslike David with his sling; and slavery, with all its vassals, North as well as South, was Goliath armed withsteel But for Garrison there were only two words, Right and Wrong, and he would not compromise

concerning either

Within two years he succeeded in organizing in Philadelphia the American Anti-Slavery Society; by 1835 heconvinced William Ellery Channing that the time had fully come for an active crusade, and this old minister,with a literary reputation in Europe almost as great as that of Washington Irving, published an abolition bookcalled "Slavery," which is said to have been read by every prominent man in public life In 1840 the societynumbered not less than 200,000, and the hardest of Garrison's work was done

But he was to have a potent ally in Wendell Phillips, the explanation of whose career is in his birth gifts One

of his ancestors was a Cambridge graduate, who rebelled against the tyranny of Charles, and exchangedwealth and position for a New England wilderness It was one of his forefathers who was the first mayor ofBoston Another founded Phillips Exeter Academy Wendell Phillips himself began his career at the momentwhen Madison's State Papers had won him the presidency, when John Adams was the glory of the city, whenChanning was the light of the pulpit, and Lyman Beecher was the idol of orthodox Boston He was in his earlyteens when he waited four hours on a Boston wharf to see Lafayette's boat come in He was thirteen when heheard Daniel Webster's oration on Adams and Jefferson He was sixteen when he entered Harvard College,and formed his lifelong friendship with his roommate, John Lothrop Motley He studied law with CharlesSumner, in the office of Judge Story, a legal star of the first magnitude He was counted one of the

handsomest youths in Boston There was nothing too bright or too hard for Wendell Phillips to aspire to, orhope for At the critical moment, when he had to decide upon his future career, ambition sang to him, as toevery noble youth George William Curtis represents Phillips as sometimes forecasting the future, as he sawhimself "succeeding Ames, and Otis and Webster, rising from the bar to the Legislature, from the Legislature

to the Senate, from the Senate who knows whither? He was already the idol of society, the applauded orator,the brilliant champion of the eloquent refinement and the conservatism of Massachusetts The delight of socialease, the refined enjoyment of taste and letters and art, opulence, leisure, professional distinction, gratifiedambition, all offered bribes to the young student." The measure of his manhood is in the way he thrust aside

all honours and emoluments that stood in the path of duty Only he who knows what he renounces gains thetrue blessing of renunciation.

The young orator's attitude towards slavery was determined by the mobbing of Garrison One October

afternoon in 1835 Wendell Phillips sat reading by an open window in his office on Court Street Suddenly hisattention was diverted from the page by voices, angry and profane, rising from the street without Lookingdown he saw a multitude moving up the street, and soon found that the multitude had become a mob Fivethousand men were collected in front of the anti-slavery office, and were trying to crowd their way up thestairs in search of Garrison In another room thirty women were assembled to organize a woman's abolitionsociety When the women found that the mob wanted to put them out also, they sent a message to MayorLyman asking protection When the mayor arrived with the police, instead of dispelling the mob and

protecting liberty of speech, the mayor dispelled the women and protected the mob Discovering that they hadthe sympathy of the mayor and would be protected by the police, the lawless element rushed upon the office

of the Liberator, smashed in the doors and windows, and dragged Garrison forth Bareheaded, with a rope

about his waist, his coat torn off, but with erect head, set lips, flashing eyes, Garrison was dragged down thestreet to the City Hall On every side rose the shout "Kill him! Lynch him! the abolitionist!" Asking who

the man was, Phillips was told that this was Garrison, the editor of the Liberator Meeting the commander of

the Boston regiment, of which he was a member, he exclaimed, "Why does not the mayor call out the troops?This is outrageous!" "Why," answered the officer, "don't you see that our militia are also the mob?" It was alltoo true The mob was made up of men of property and standing In that hour Wendell Phillips had his call Inthe person of that man dragged down the street with a rope around his waist, the most gifted speaker in Bostonhad found his client; in the crusade against slavery he found his cause, and soon his clarion voice was heardsounding the onset

To Garrison's organized agitation, begun in 1832, that soon spread all over the country, must be added asecond cause for anti-slavery sentiment, the murder of Lovejoy This was on the night of November 7, 1837.The Rev Elijah P Lovejoy was a young Presbyterian minister, a graduate of Princeton Seminary He began

his career as pastor of a little church in St Louis and editor of the Presbyterian Observer At that time he was

not an abolitionist, and, perhaps because he had married the daughter of a slave owner, he had taken no strongposition either for or against slavery One day an officer arrested a black man in St Louis who resisted arrest,and in the mêlée the officer was killed His friends claimed that the negro was a freeman, and that there was aplot to kidnap him and sell him into the Southern cotton fields, and that he had a right to resist The real factswill, doubtless, never be known To slave owners, however, it was intolerable that a black man should resist

an officer under any circumstances A mob collected, the negro was bound to a stake, wood piled round about,and the prisoner was burned to death

Efforts were made to punish the murderers In the irony of events the name of the judge was Lawless, and hecharged the grand jury substantially as follows: "When men are hurried by some mysterious metaphysicalelectric frenzy to commit a deed of violence they are absolved from guilt If you should find that such was thefact in this case, then act not at all The case transcends your jurisdiction, and is beyond the reach of humanlaw." Of course all the murderers went free When Mr Lovejoy commented editorially upon this outrageouscharge, encouraging lynch law, once again the "mysterious, metaphysical electric frenzy" broke forth, onlythis time it destroyed his printing office The young minister decided to leave the slave State, and crossed toAlton, Illinois, where there was not only liberty of speech but liberty of the printing-press But a mob crossedover from Missouri and destroyed his press Determined to maintain his rights, Lovejoy then brought anotherpress down the Ohio River from Cincinnati A group of his friends carried the type from the steamboat to thewarehouse, but the next night a second mob collected, and when Lovejoy stepped from the building he wasriddled with bullets, the warehouse burned, and the press, for the third time, flung into the Mississippi Thenews of this murder aroused the continent, filling the South with exultation, and the North with alarm

Slavery, a subject which had long been tabooed, suddenly became the one topic of conversation in the home,the store, the street-car All editors wrote about it; all Northern pulpits began to preach on the subject Morefaggots had been flung upon the fire, and oil added to the fierce flames

Every explosion asks for powder, but also a spark Falling on ice, a spark is impotent, falling on powder, anexplosion is inevitable Wendell Phillips had already been aroused to sympathy with Garrison and hatred ofslavery, and news of the murder of Lovejoy fell upon his heart like a spark on a powder magazine WhenBoston heard that Lovejoy had been shot by the mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his printing-press, theleading men of Boston came together in Faneuil Hall William Ellery Channing made the opening address,and asked that the meeting go on record through an indignant protest against this assault upon the rights offree citizens James T Austin, attorney-general of the commonwealth, replied in a bitter and insulting

reference to Channing, asserting that a clergyman with a gun in his hand, or mingling in the debate of apopular assembly in Faneuil Hall, was marvellously out of place Austin compared the slaves of the South to amenagerie of wild beasts, and asserted that Lovejoy in defending them was presumptuous, and died as a fooldieth He added that the rioters in Alton killed Lovejoy and flung his press into the river in the spirit of theBoston mob that boarded the British ships in 1773, and threw the tea overboard on the night of the "BostonTea Party."

That was a great moment in the history not only of liberty, but also in that of eloquence Wendell Phillips,then but six years out of Harvard College, rose to reply "A comparison has been drawn between the events ofthe Revolution and the tragedy at Alton We have heard it asserted here in Faneuil Hall that Great Britain had

a right to tax the colonies And we have heard the mob at Alton, drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared tothose patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob atAlton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights, met to resist the laws Lovejoy had stationed himselfwithin constitutional bulwarks He was not only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his ownroof, in arms with the sanction of the civil authority The men who assailed him went against and over thelaws The mob, as the gentleman terms it (mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a

marvellously patient generation!), the 'orderly mob' which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea weremet to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and Stamp Actlaws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but the king's usurpation To find any other account youmust read our revolutionary history upside down To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent formobs is an insult to their memory They were the people rising to sustain the laws and constitution of theprovince The rioters of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong Sir, when I heard the gentleman laydown principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy andAdams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice torebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil

consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowedhim up Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press! Why? Because the defense was unsuccessful? Doessuccess gild crime into patriotism, and the want of it change heroic self-devotion into imprudence? WasHampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard?"

The next morning young Phillips, like Lord Byron, awoke to find himself famous Merchants, politicians, whohad long been staggering like drunken men, indifferent to their rights, and confused in their feelings, werestunned into sobriety, and began to discuss principles, and weigh characters, and analyze public leaders, andwakening, men found that they had been standing on the edge of a precipice Phillips, already devoted to theslave, became now his tireless champion through many years, till the emancipation of 1863

One evening in May, 1854, a negro was seen skulking in the shadows near a dock in Boston This colouredman, Anthony Burns by name, was a slave, who had escaped from his Southern master, and after weeks hadreached Philadelphia, where a Quaker had stowed him away in a ship bound for Boston A Boston policemanwho caught sight of the negro recalled the rewards offered for the capture of slaves, and soon ran the fugitivedown, and had him before United States Commissioner Loring The next morning Theodore Parker hastened

to the court-room to say that he was the chaplain of the Abolition Society, and had come to offer counsel Butthe fugitive was afraid to accept the overture, lest his master punish him the more severely

The news spread quickly throughout the city, and two nights later a meeting in Faneuil Hall was attended by

an enormous gathering, aroused to the highest pitch of excitement Hand-bills had been put out, stating thatkidnappers were in the city The people were in a frenzy Theodore Parker delivered one of his most

impassioned addresses "I am an old man; I have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty many times; I have not

seen a great many deeds done for liberty I ask you, Are we to have deeds as well as words?" Parker moved

that, when the meeting adjourned, it should be to meet the following morning in the square before the

court-house But he had raised too great a storm to control; a rumour that a mob of negroes was at that verymoment trying to rescue Burns was all that was needed to empty the room; and the crowd rushed out to thecourt-house square There they discovered a small party of men, led by Thomas W Higginson, trying to batterdown the court-house doors The crowd lent them willing hands But the marshall defended the

building, shots were fired, Higginson wounded, and several of his followers arrested Two companies ofartillery were at once ordered out by the mayor, and the attempt to rescue the negro met with complete anddisastrous failure Wendell Phillips and Parker were the leaders in the fight When asked what he wouldregard as grounds for the return of Burns to his master, Phillips answered, "Nothing short of a bill of sale fromAlmighty God."

The day of the transfer of the slave to the United States revenue cutter found Boston in a state of siege

Twenty-two companies of Massachusetts soldiers patrolled the city; two rows of soldiers, armed with

muskets, shotted to kill, stood on either side of the street through which Burns was to be led to the vessel Thewindows were filled with people, the houses hung in black, the United States flags were draped in mourning.From a window near the court-house hung a coffin, with the legend: "The funeral of liberty." The processionitself was composed of a battalion of United States artillery, one of United States marines, the marshall's posse

of 125 men guarding the fugitive, and a small cannon, with two more platoons of marines to guard it To such

a pass had come Boston, with its respect for law, and its reputation for obedience to those clothed in authority

A Charleston paper spoke of the return of Burns as a Southern victory, but added that two or three suchvictories would ruin the cause For the movement against slavery was now rising, with all the advance of atidal wave and a mighty storm

The public excitement was greatly increased by the Fugitive Slave legislation of 1850 and 1854 Many

Northern men who were opposed to slavery in the North condoned slavery in the South Just as Demetriusurged that by the making of images of Diana "we have our gain," so timid capital in the North bowed like asuitor at the feet of the imperial South, and advised silence, remembering that through the money of Southernplanters it had its livelihood Wendell Phillips went up and down the land stirring up opinion against the law

He spoke three hundred times in one year and two hundred and seventy-five times in another year Phillipsrose upon the opposition like a war eagle against an advancing storm Brave men defied the law, organized theUnderground Railroad, and in every way possible defeated the purpose of the Fugitive Slave Law So in 1854when Senator Douglas engineered through Congress the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the MissouriCompromise, the North refused to accept what was so palpably pro-slavery legislation This was

revolutionary Instantly the North divided into two camps The one question of the hour was "Shall a fugitiveslave be furnished with weapons with which to defend his person, and has he the right of self-defense?" Thewhole land became a debating society, and heaved with excitement, like the heaving of an earthquake Themerchant pointed to his ledger, and urged caution But liberty was stronger than the ledger, and the heavingemotion burst through the statutes and rent the laws asunder Soon the Fugitive Slave Law, had become a deadletter The South had gone one step too far Abolition stood suddenly in a new light; "More abolitionists hadbeen made by this single piece of hostile legislation," said Greeley, "than Garrison and Phillips could havemade in half a century."

For thirty years Wendell Phillips was the crowned king of the lecture platform It was the golden age of thelyceum Men had more leisure than to-day Our era of the drama, music, and travel pictures had not yet come.The winter nights were long, books few, magazines had not yet developed, and the people were hungry forinstruction and eloquence Wendell Phillips achieved the astonishing feat of speaking three hundred times ayear Eloquence is born of a great theme like the woes and wrongs of three million slaves It is sometimes saidthat oratory is dying out in our Congress But Congress is now a board of trade, discussing duties, protective

tariffs on wool, cotton, and hides Beecher and Phillips had a great theme liberty, the emancipation of

millions of slaves The modern orator in the Senate discusses the mathematics of woolen goods It is hard to

be eloquent over one salt barrel and two piles of cowhides A sermon or a lecture on topics that fifty years agowould have crowded the greatest room and the street outside would not to-day draw a corporal's guard.But in those heroic days, there was a great opportunity, and the opportunity was matched by the man Phillipswas handsome as an Apollo His voice was sweet as a harp No man ever studied the art of public speechmore scientifically He played upon an audience as a skillful musician upon the banks of keys in an organ ASouthern slaveholder heard him in the Academy of Music, hating him, but paying him this tribute, "That man

is an infernal machine set to music." His method was practically the memoriter method A gentleman, whoheard him give his "Daniel O'Connell" four times in succession, found that the lecture was repeated withoutthe slightest variation whatsoever, in ideas, sentences, inflection of the voice, or even gesture Phillips

prepared his lectures with the greatest care, and then repeated them hundreds of times From the momentwhen he came upon the platform his presence filled the eye and satisfied it His very ease and poise begatconfidence and delight He carved each sentence out of solid sunshine He stood quietly, made few gestures,adopted the conversational tone and took the audience into his confidence

Some of his finest effects were produced by the injection of a parenthesis Once in an evening sermon inPlymouth Church, when Beecher was urging the reëlection of Lincoln and defending the Republican party, adisputatious individual called out from the congregation, "What about Wendell Phillips?" To which Mr.Beecher made the instant answer, "Wendell Phillips is not a Republican Wendell Phillips is a radical and anindependent What this country needs is not a man of words but a man of deeds." A few nights later WendellPhillips was lecturing in the Brooklyn Academy of Music before the St Patrick's Society, and made his reply

in the form of a parenthesis, barbing his shaft with an exquisite inflection of his voice "Mr Beecher said last

Sunday night (forgetting his own vocation), 'Wendell Phillips is a man of words, instead of a man of deeds.'"

Not that the two men were ever unfriendly, for they were co-workers, standing side by side in the greatmovement Once when the trustees of yonder Academy refused to allow Mr Phillips to speak, Mr Beechermade it a point of honour with his trustees to let Wendell Phillips speak in Plymouth Church, and ran the risk

of the mob destroying the building The tumultuous scenes of that night, when bricks came through thewindows, and the police were stationed in Cranberry and Orange Streets, were repeated all over the land.Again and again Wendell Phillips was mobbed Once, at the very beginning of his career as an abolitionist, hespoke with an old Quaker People waited to greet the old Quaker and asked him home for the night; but theypelted Wendell Phillips with rotten eggs as he went down the street in the dark Afterwards Wendell Phillipssaid to the old Quaker, "I said just what you did, and yet you were invited home to fried chicken and a bed,while I received raw eggs and stone."

"I will tell thee the difference, Wendell Thou said, 'If thou art a holder of slaves, thou wilt go to hell.' I said,'If thou dost not hold slaves, thou wilt not go to hell.'"

But Wendell Phillips would not butter parsnips with fine words Once in Boston four hundred men surroundedhim, got possession of the hall, and jeered him for an hour and a half Finally he leaned over the desk andshouted down to a reporter, "Thank God there is no manacle for the printing-press." Armed friends rescuedhim, guarded him home, and for a week, night and day, the Boston police guarded the house Those weretumultuous days But this great man braved and outlived the storm

When the Emancipation Proclamation was declared, William Lloyd Garrison said nothing remained now but

to die But Phillips opposed the dissolution of the Anti-Slavery Society, because he saw that when the

physical fetters were broken, there still remained the fetters of the mind and heart that must be destroyed Sofar from ending his labours, Phillips now redoubled his activities He threw himself into the labour movementand helped organize the working classes into a solid force against capitalism He took up the cause of suffrageand the higher education of woman, gave himself to the temperance problem and prohibition He lectured

oftentimes two hundred nights a year in the great cities of the land, seeking always to manufacture manhood

of a good quality He became himself our finest example of the power and influence of the scholar in theRepublic And when the end came, he received from his fellow countrymen the admiration and the love that

he had deserved And the friends who knew him best were not surprised that the last words on his lips werethe words of his friend James Russell Lowell, that summarized the ideal that Wendell Phillips had pursued forthirty years

"New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward,who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch

our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the

Past's blood-rusted key."

IV

CHARLES SUMNER: THE APPEAL TO EDUCATED MEN

In every country and time, the era of national peril has been the creative era for the intellect The eloquence ofGreece was at its best when Philip attacked Athens and Demosthenes defended its liberties Dante's poemswere born of the collision between the despots who sought to enslave Florence, and the patriots who dreamed

of democracy Milton's songs were written during the English Revolution, when the Puritan, seeking todiffuse the good things of life, and the Cavalier, who wished to monopolize the earth's treasure, came into adeadly collision

In accordance with that principle it seems natural to expect that the scholars of the Republic should do theirbest work during the era of agitation, when the national intellect was white hot, and public excitement burned

by day and night The anti-slavery epoch, therefore, was the Augustan Era of American literature, when thehistorians, poets and philosophers lent distinction to American literature At that time Motley was writing his

"History of the Netherlands"; Prescott, his "History of Mexico and Spain"; Whittier, his songs of slavery andfreedom; Lowell was the satirist of the debate, and was writing his "Biglow Papers," and Emerson, the

philosopher, was undermining the foundations and shaking the principles of slavery, even as Samson pulleddown the temple of the olden time

Emerson, the philosopher, did the thinking, and furnished the intellectual implements to the abolitionists.Beginning his career as a preacher, he resigned his position, moved to Concord, and dwelt apart from men, but

"as he mused, the fire burned." Easily our first man of American letters, he is among the first essayists of allages and climes Essentially, however, he was a man of intellect, an American Plato, "a Greek head screwedupon Yankee shoulders," to use Holmes' expression His essay upon "The American Scholar," and his book on

"Nature," brought him fame in England, and invitations to lecture before their colleges Early in his career hewon the friendship of Arnold of Rugby, of Matthew Arnold the son, of Arthur Hugh Clough, and of ThomasCarlyle He returned from his honours in England to find himself the centre of the intellectual movement ofNew England A number of younger men gathered around him, until Emerson's group at Concord became likeunto Goethe's group at Weimar, and Coleridge's in London During the late forties American educators,orators and statesmen began to quote the striking sentences from Emerson Little by little it came about thatthe fighters went to Emerson as to an arsenal for their intellectual weapons His first notable contribution toabolitionism was his "Story of the West India Emancipation." Then came his "Essay on the Fugitive SlaveLaw," his speech on the Assault on Mr Sumner, his writings on Kansas, and on John Brown Few men havehad such power to condense a statement of philosophy into a single epigram Grant once said of his soldiersthat while each man took aim for himself, Winchester slew all the thousands Not otherwise, hundreds oforators and reformers went up and down the land attacking slavery, but while the voices were many, theargument was one, and Emerson for a time did the speaking for the abolitionists

What Emerson stated in pure white light, Whittier made popular through his poems of Slavery and Freedom.

By way of preëminence he was the poet of the abolition movement, and the Sir Galahad among our singers.Reared among the Friends, he had the simplicity of the Quaker, but the solidity and massiveness of the

fighting Puritan Strange as it may seem, he was at once the poet of peace, insisting upon the crime of war,and the poet of freedom, insisting upon the destruction of slavery The fire and glow, the moral earnestness,the spiritual passion of Whittier, are best illustrated in his "Lost Occasion," and "Ichabod." At length thenewspapers of the North took up his work For some years before the war broke out, scarcely a month passed

by without a new poem of liberty by Whittier Soon these poems that were published in the newspapers wererecited in the schools by the children, quoted in the pulpits by the preachers, and used by the orators as

feathers for their arrows Once Wendell Phillips concluded an impassioned oration by reciting one of

Whittier's stanzas, when a man in the audience shouted, "That arrow went home!" to which Wendell Phillipsanswered, "Yes, and I have a quiver full of arrows, every one of which was made by a man of peace, JohnGreenleaf Whittier." If Emerson's philosophy was like the diffused white daylight that makes clear the

landscape for an army, Whittier's occasional poems like "Ichabod" were thunderbolts that blasted forever allcompromise and expediency

Sometimes what the essayist fails to achieve ridicule easily accomplishes James Russell Lowell was thesatirist of the abolition movement With biting scorn and irony he laughed men out of narrowness, ignorance,and selfishness During the last epoch in his career Lowell achieved world-wide fame as a diplomat, and wasuniversally admired as the all round man of letters But now that he has gone, in retrospect, the historianperceives that the first era of Lowell's career was the influential era He was the Milton of the anti-slaveryepoch, as Lincoln was its Cromwell His influence in England, in developing an anti-slavery sentiment there,was, if possible, more influential than in the home country The great English editor, William Stead, tells usthat he owes to Lowell's message the influences that made him an editor and a reformer In the critical

moments of his life he found in Lowell the inspiration and support that he found in no other books, save inCarlyle's "Cromwell" and the Bible "In Russia, in Ireland, in Rome, and in prison, Lowell's poems have been

my constant companions." The poet used the story of Moses emancipating the Hebrew slaves as an illustration

of the abolitionist as the unknown leader whom God would raise up to lead the three million black men out ofSouthern slavery "What God did for the Egyptian bondsmen, he believed God would do; because what Godwas, God is He goes on:

"From what a Bible can a man choose his text to-day! A Bible which needs no translation; and which nopriestcraft can close from the laity, the open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine anddestroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of God Methinks the editor who shouldunderstand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title that Homer bestows upon princes

He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a commonmountain, stared at by the elegant tourist, and crawled over by the hammer of the geologist, he must find histables of the new law here among factories and cities in this wilderness of sin, called the progress of

civilization, and be the captain of our exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order."

Certain stanzas of Lowell, also, were quoted even more widely, and were ever upon the lips of college

students Many a soldier boy who went to battle from the forest and factory, the fields and the mines, scarcelyknew that his inspiration like Phillip's oratory was embodied in Lowell's poem, "The Present Crisis":

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for thegood or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goatsupon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and thatlight

"Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt oldsystems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold swaysthe future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."

Then came Charles Sumner, the scholar in politics, to make practical the student's message Daniel Webster'sdefense of Massachusetts in his reply to Hayne, and his wonderful eloquence in the years which followed thatfirst great address, lifted the old Bay State into unique preëminence in the Senate: when, therefore, Websterleft the Senate and entered the cabinet of Millard Fillmore, the North and the South alike asked, with intenseinterest, who should succeed the defender of the Constitution That no dramatic interest might be lackingwhen, in 1851, Charles Sumner entered the Senate chamber to take the oath of office, it came about thatHenry Clay, the great Compromiser, left the Senate, going out at one door, on the very day that Conscience, inthe person of this Puritan, entered it by the other door John C Calhoun, inflexible, iron to the end, adheringtenaciously to his doctrine of secession, had just died, quite unconscious of the fact that his speeches held theexplosives that were to shatter the South and destroy half a million of his beloved people Clay, too, wasdeath-stricken, and with great pathos referred to himself as "a stag scarred by spears, worried by wounds,dragging his mutilated body to his lair to lie down and die." Webster was now gray and broken, with theshadow of the eclipse already drawing near In such a moment Charles Sumner began his career by an appeal

to the "everlasting yea" and the "everlasting nay." "I desire to speak to-day of some laws greater than anypassed in this capital or this country; older than America, older than India I mean the laws of God."

Hitherto slavery had been the aggressor, crowding into Texas, edging into Missouri, with bullets forcing itsway into Kansas Freedom had always been on the defensive Now all was changed, with the coming of a manwhose watchword was "Slavery must be destroyed; liberty must be preserved." That cold body called theSenate became immediately conscious of the new influence that entered into the very being of the

government, like iron into the rich blood of the physical system Charles Sumner made it clear from thebeginning that the movement against slavery was from the Everlasting Arm With expediency he had nothing

to do, but only with eternal right and eternal wrong One day Daniel Webster reminded his young successor ofthe importance of looking on the other side, indicating that a shield that was gold on one side might at least besilver on the other, to which Sumner replied, "There is no other side." This Boston scholar became a voice forlaw, "whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose speech is the melody of the world." These eternal laws ofGod rose up to stay the progress of slavery like the beetling granite cliffs of Maine, that send forth their voice

to the onrushing tides, saying, "Here stay your proud waves thus far, and no farther."

Ancestry, opportunity and events all conspired to equip Charles Sumner with those implements that makeman great Like Phillips, he was a descendant of the early settlers of Boston His father led the men whodelivered Garrison out of the hands of the mob, and who told the excited populace that unless Boston wascareful "our children's heads will be broken by cannon-balls." The plastic, critical hours of his youth werespent in Harvard College and in the law office of Judge Story Never interested in philosophy and

metaphysics, he was surpassed by few as a master of the humanities, general literature, and the story of therise and progress of democracy and free institutions Not a man of genius, Charles Sumner was gifted withtalent of a very high order He had, what is perhaps better than genius, a capacity for sustained labour andprodigious industry He did nothing by halves In his chosen realm he became a master of the details of everymovement related to free institutions, since the days of the republics of Greece and Switzerland, Holland andEngland Long after other students had blown out their lights, Charles Sumner's window was still flaming At

a very early epoch he exhibited his tenacity of will and his constitutional inability to change his mind Once

he planned with a companion to walk to Boston on Saturday morning, starting at half-past seven When thehour struck, a snow-storm was raging But having decided to go to Boston, to Boston the student went alone,floundering through the blizzard Snow-drifts were little things, but changing his plan was an impossiblething The centre of his character, about which all else revolved, was a certain axis of pride and self-esteem,which may be pardoned, perhaps, in view of the fact that the world takes a man largely upon his own estimate

of personal worth

In those days the atmosphere of Boston was charged with enthusiasm for education and the humanities.Among young Sumner's friends were Prescott, who was writing the history of Spain and Mexico; Bancroft,who was outlining his history of the United States; Story, the jurist; Horace Mann, the educator; Dr Howe,the father of the movement for the education of the deaf and dumb; Emerson, Longfellow, Channing and

Whittier all were not simply friends but correspondents of Charles Sumner.

Nor must we forget the Boston of earlier days, the Boston of Adams, and Otis, of Warren and Quincy In such

a city, surrounded by the noblest traditions of patriotism, stimulated by the greatest group of scholars that theRepublic has produced, Charles Sumner passed his early manhood Then, remembering that Edward Everetthad fitted himself for his work in Harvard University by four years abroad, Sumner, in his twenty-seventhyear, went to Europe He spent five months in Germany, where the spirits of Goethe, Richter and Lutherlingered upon the scene In Paris he studied French, French art, French literature, French philosophy, andfinally attended the debates in the French Parliament, examining the problems with all the care of a member

He lingered long in England, where he was welcomed and lionized by the foremost men of letters, science,philosophy, as well as by the leading clergymen and statesmen of London He was an honoured guest not atsome, but "at most of the country seats of England and Scotland." He travelled the circuits as the companion

of the greatest English judges, Vaughan, Parke and Alderson He met on a familiar footing Macaulay andGrote, Carlyle and Jeffrey, Sidney Smith and Wordsworth But his great year was in Italy, in the Eternal City,the city of Cæsar and Cicero, the city of Horace and Virgil In all, Sumner spent thirty years in preparation forhis labour Few men in American politics have had a wider horizon, a better equipment in history and

literature, or have known so intimately all the great men in the world of his own generation who were worthknowing He went away to Europe an American; he returned a universal man, a citizen of the world

Not until 1845, when he was thirty-four years of age, did a really great opportunity come to Sumner Boston atthat far-off day made much of the Fourth of July, and looked forward to the holiday as the great event of theyear During the previous autumn the mayor and aldermen of the city invited Sumner to deliver the oration.Webster made John Adams say, "When we are in our graves, our children will celebrate the day with song andstory, with oration and pageant, and the explosion of cannon, and greet it with tears of joy and exultation." Butunfortunately the speeches of that time had degenerated into false rhetoric, full of insincerity In his oration,Sumner left the beaten track and plunged into an unknown way His theme was the crime of war He attackedhis city and his country for spending millions upon fortifications in the harbour He affirmed that the bestprotection of a nation was not dead stones but living patriots and heroes He called the roll of the great wars ofhistory, and found only one or two, like our Revolution, that were really justifiable He defined war as thetemporary repeal of all the ten commandments, and an enthronement of all the crimes

In retrospect we know that Sumner overstated his case His argument against physical force would forbid thepolice in great cities, the militia on the frontier, and would leave communities exposed to the ravages ofbrigands on land and pirates by sea But for the most part, Sumner's argument in favour of peace was sound.To-day all civilized countries are coming to recognize war as a blunder, since questions of justice cannot besettled by brute force

When we consider that France is an armed camp, Germany and Austria countries of bristling bayonets, thatthree years at the most critical epoch of the boy's life are consumed in a camp exposed to all manner of

temptations and dangers, at the very time when the youth should be mastering his trade or his profession, warseems the capitalization of all the possible follies and wastes The peasants of Europe plough, each carrying asoldier upon his back The brick-mason builds, but staggers up the ladder with a heavier load than bricks, thesoldier upon his back The symbols of nations are still the lion, the eagle and the wolf Some political leaderseven yet talk about the necessity of an occasional war to put boys upon their mettle, as if invention, thebuilding of railways, the founding of cities, the fighting of economic and social wrongs would not put a manupon his mettle! To put a German on one side of a fence and a Frenchman on the other, and have one peasantempty his shotgun into the bowels of the other is about as noble as going out into a yard and shooting a Jerseycow The best way to protect a nation is to build boys into men, through the processes of productive industry.Machine gun and dreadnought will soon be as obsolete in the presence of arbitration and the court at theHague as an ox-cart is obsolete in the presence of a Pullman palace car

Wendell Phillips once said that Lord Bacon had a right to lay his hand on the steam engine and say to Watt:

"This engine is mine; I gave you the method." So Charles Sumner, after sixty-five years, has a right to standyonder at the entrance of the Parliament House of Peace, now being completed in the capital of Holland, andsay: "I laid the foundation stones of this structure and started a war against war." This oration of Sumner's on

"The True Grandeur of Nations" made him a most unpopular figure at home, but Europe soon called for hisspeech It was translated into many languages, two hundred and fifty-thousand copies were published andsold, and for the time Sumner was the most talked of man of the year

Now the one man who was not on the defensive, who was not content to merely stay the forward progress ofslavery, but insisted on driving it back into the Gulf and ultimately into the sea, to be drowned forever, wasCharles Sumner, with his "Carthago est delenda." His favourite phrase was "freedom is national, slavery issectional." Burke himself, depicting the sufferings of India, scarcely surpassed Sumner's speech on the

devastation of Kansas by outlaws and guerrillas Commenting upon the fact that a company of armed slaveowners had crossed the borders at night, and destroyed the homes of a group of Northern settlers, Sumnersaid: "Border incursions, which in barbarous lands fretted and harried an exposed people, are here renewed,with this peculiarity, that our border robbers do not simply levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, they donot seize a few persons and sweep them away into captivity, like the African slave-traders whom we brand astyrants, but they commit a succession of deeds in which border sorrows and African wrongs are revivedtogether on American soil, while the whole territory is enslaved I do not dwell on the anxieties of familiesexposed to sudden assault, and lying down to rest with the alarms of war ringing in the ears, not knowing thatanother day may be spared them Throughout this bitter winter, with the thermometer thirty degrees belowzero, the citizens of Lawrence have slept under arms, with sentinels pacing In vain do we condemn thecruelties of another age the refinement of torture, the rack and thumbscrew of the Inquisition; for kindredoutrages disgrace these borders Murder stalks, assassination skulks in the tall grass; where a candidate for theLegislature was gashed with knives and hatchets, and after weltering in blood on the snow-clad earth, trundledalong with gaping wounds to fall dead before the face of his wife."

With speeches like these, Sumner attacked slavery The edge of his argument was keen, but his blows had alsothe power of sledgehammers The Southern leaders were in a frenzy of anger Harriet Martineau said of thesituation that from 1830 to 1850, by general agreement, men in Congress referred to slavery under theirbreath, believing that only by silence could the Union be preserved Now came a man who believed thatsilence was criminal, who would not be bullied, and would be heard, who believed in the Golden Rule,insisted on the Declaration of Independence, and who, in the name of freedom that was national, wished todestroy the Fugitive Slave Law and bring about the immediate and unconditional emancipation of all slaves

on the ground

When two opposing gases come together, an explosion is inevitable One day in 1856, after the adjournment

of the Senate, a Southern member of Congress entered the Chamber, and finding Sumner seated, with his legsunder an iron desk screwed to the floor, and, therefore, helpless for defense, with a heavy walking-stick theassailant beat the powerless man into insensibility, two of his friends protecting him from those who wouldinterfere in his murderous assault Having lost enough blood to soak through the carpet and stain the veryfloor, unconscious, and hovering between life and death, Sumner was carried to a sofa, thence to his hotel.From that time on the scholar endured a living death He was carried to Paris, where Dr Brown-Sequard tried

"the fire cure" upon the spine But for years his desk was vacant Massachusetts insisted that the empty seatshould proclaim to the world her abhorrence of the barbarism that, unequal to intellectual debate, betakesitself to clubs and murder Later on Sumner did return to his seat, but he was broken in health, and to the endwas tortured with pain Nevertheless, despite all the physical distresses, he remained the Puritan in politics,adhering inflexibly to his old ideals of liberty The great lesson of Sumner's life is the importance of fidelity toconviction and singleness of purpose All Sumner's speeches in Congress, all his lectures on the platform, hisappeals to the people of the North during the years when he travelled incessantly, addressing great crowds allover the land, had a single theme, "Liberty is national, Slavery is sectional; Liberty must be established,Slavery must be destroyed." He had his faults and limitations, but men without faults are generally menwithout force Limitations are like banks to a river; they increase the strength of the current for a mill wheel

Sumner's concentration made his enemies call him a narrow man and a fanatic But Paul was narrow when hesaid, "This one thing I do." Luther was narrow when he nailed his theses to the door of the church in

Wittenberg Garrison was narrow and a fanatic when he said, "I will not equivocate, I will not retreat a singleinch, and I will be heard." Rushing between the cliffs of its banks, the Rhine has power through confinement;spreading out over the plains of North Germany, the Rhine becomes a mere marsh, laden with miasm, blown

to and fro with the winds

The tallow candle is small, while the summer lightning flashes across the midnight sky But for the purpose ofstudying a guide book in the dark, one lucifer match is worth a sky full of lightning

Sumner had the courage of his convictions; he was brave as a lion Having no physical fear, he was devoidalso of moral fear He had the foresight of far-off things, and could look beyond to-day's defeat to the comingvictory for his cause He had many bitter enemies His intolerance and intellectual arrogance offended men.When a friend said to President Grant, "Sumner is a skeptic; I fear he does not believe in the Bible," Grant'sinstant retort was, "Certainly he does not; he did not write it."

But we can forgive much to a man who sacrificed much, and endured the murderous cross of cruelty, obloquyand shame A lonely and companionless man, at the end, he trod the wine-press of sorrow in solitude andisolation He had no woman's love to heal his wounded spirit His one support was the cause he loved To thiscause he clung with a tenacity that was as sublime as it was pathetic The last time he opened his eyes it was

to repeat unconsciously the dearest thoughts of his life, "All humanity is my country." "Take care of my civilrights bill."

When long time has passed, many other great names will pass out of view like tapers that have burned down

to the socket But the name and memory of this Puritan will probably survive, as the highest type of thescholar toiling in the heroic age of the Republic

V

HORACE GREELEY: THE APPEAL TO THE COMMON PEOPLE

To the work of the statesmen and jurists, the agitators and orators, must now be added the contribution of theeditors A loaf of bread represents many elements united in a single body The sun lends heat, the clouds lendrain, the soil its chemical elements, the air its rich dust, and the result is the wheaten loaf Not otherwise is itwith the moral and political treasure named the Union and the Emancipation of slaves The soldier boys at thefront stayed the advancing tide of rebellion, and flung back from Pennsylvania waves all tipped with fire.With not less heroism farmer boys at home toiled in the fields to feed and support the boys in blue Physicians

in the hospitals, nurses at the front, lived also and died, caring for crippled heroes Mothers and daughters,sisters, sweethearts and wives wrought innumerable garments and hospital supplies, while from full heartsgiving inspiration or courageously bearing the miseries of bereavement Orators went forth to incite, ministersbrought divine sanctions to inspire men towards patriotism and self-sacrifice Statesmen supported the leaders

by war measures, manufacturers and bankers stood behind the government But to all these workers must beadded the work of the correspondents at the front, with the editors who consecrated the press to liberty.The power and wealth of the newspaper of to-day is explained, in no small measure, by the battles of the CivilWar, that kindled the interest of millions who had never before read the daily newspaper, but who becameafter the first battle students of God's book of daily events During those terrible days men slept in dread andwakened in fear as to what might have happened on the Potomac or the Mississippi Out of these tumultuousconditions the Sunday newspaper was born Before the battle of Bull Run people of New York and Chicagofrowned upon the Sunday newspaper, just as the people of London and Edinburgh to-day will have none of it.But when there were a million men in arms and the whole land trembled with the thunder of cannon and thestroke of battle, anxious parents, fearful wives, knowing that the conflict was on, when Saturday's sun set felt

that they could not wait till Monday morning for news from the front.

But if the war did much for the press, newspaper men did much for liberty To supply the people of thecountry with news from the field, a veritable army of war correspondents was organized, a telegraphic servicewas organized and built up, plans were laid that developed into the Associated Press This telegraphic servicebecame a vast and shining web lying all over this land, with wires that trembled by night and day, flashing outnow despair, and now hope, to innumerable hearts Liberty owes a great debt to the press, for it assembled allthe people in one vast speaking chamber, and told them how events were going with the slave and the Union

If we are to appreciate fully the place of the press during the anti-slavery epoch, we must recall the conditions

of American life in the olden time When the colonies revolted and published their Declaration there were inthe United States only forty-three newspapers, most of them weeklies There were fourteen papers in NewEngland, four in New York State, two in Virginia, two in Carolina and nine in Pennsylvania The entireforty-three papers, however, held less printed matter than any ten pages of our morning journals The papers

of that time contained no editorials, and were strictly purveyors of the gossip and news of the week, with rudeadvertisements now a cut of a horse that had strayed, an apprentice that had escaped, a slave that had runaway, enlivened, indeed, by frantic and pathetic appeals for the subscribers to pay up their dues There were

no public libraries, no reading rooms, no inns where men could go on winter evenings and read the papers.That which starved the newspaper was the lack of facilities for distribution It cost twenty-five cents to send aletter Most of the correspondents were widely separated lovers Romeo, knowing that Juliet would not beable to pay twenty-five cents for his weekly effusion, learned the use of the cypher, and by means of a largecircle on the outside of the letter and a pink spot within it succeeded in conveying certain mystic symbols ofosculation, that told the story of undying fidelity without paying the postman for the letter that was left in hishands The old postman who jogged along between Philadelphia and New York spent three days on the trip,and put in his time knitting stockings John Adams tells us that it took him six days on the coach from Boston

to New York, and that he rose every morning long before day, took his seat in the cold, dark coach, andlistened to the creaking of the wheels on the snow until two hours after dark until late Saturday night, cold andexhausted, he entered the little inn near Castle Garden For these reasons no newspaper had any circulationbeyond its own county

The first railroads that helped distribute the newspapers began to be built about 1836, and the first ship tocarry our newspapers to England sailed in 1838 The first telegraphic message was sent from Washington toBaltimore in 1844 The first cablegram in the interest of the press was sent in 1858 Meanwhile the peoplewere isolated, starved, being fully conscious that they were like peasants shut in between mountain walls,while they longed to be citizens of the universe A single illustration from history will explain the isolation ofcommunities at that time: the news that Jackson had been elected President in early November did not reachhis own State of Tennessee until after New Year's Day!

Horace Greeley entered the scene at a great crisis for the people, and was raised up to fill a national need Godhad prepared the soldiers to fight for the people, the orators to speak to the people, the physicians to heal thepeople, the educators to instruct the people He had raised up the statesmen to make the laws, but the worldwaited for men to cause knowledge to run up and down the land The common people found a friend inHorace Greeley He was born in 1811, in Amherst, Massachusetts, near the very cabin in which his forefathershad settled God gave him a hungry mind, which literally consumed facts of nature and life Not John StuartMill himself was more precocious than Horace Greeley He was reading without difficulty at three years ofage, and read any ordinary book at five There never was an hour when he was not the best scholar in the littlelog schoolhouse, where he suffered the long winter through, scorched if he was on the inside circle next to thefire, or freezing if he was on the outer rim

Reading was the boy's master passion Like the locust, he consumed every dry twig and green branch ofknowledge Before he was ten years of age he believed he had read every book that could be borrowed within

a radius of six miles He read the Bible through, every word, when he was five years old; at eleven he hadread Shakespeare and Byron Spelling was at once a taste and an acquisition The people of his neighbourhoodput the child up against other crack spellers in the school districts It is said that in the old evening

spelling-bees, his school-teacher, who had him in charge, had to wake the child up when his turn came around

to spell The trustees of Bedford Academy passed a resolution permitting Horace Greeley, although outside ofthe district, to enter their school, while a few teachers raised a purse, and made an offer to his father to sendthe boy to Phillips Exeter Academy But pride prevented Horace Greeley's childhood fell on evil days Menwere miserably poor It was one long warfare with hunger and cold The ravages of disease among childrenwere really the result of insufficient food in those poverty-stricken times Although the mortgage on the farmwas a mere bagatelle, the father lost the homestead, and became a hired man on fifty cents a day, on whichamount he had to feed and clothe his family This boy worked by day and studied by night History andpolitics, poetry and science, formed the staples of his reading and reflection For two years he pleaded with hisfather to apprentice him to a printer; the day that the printer refused the boy and showed the poor farmer andhis son the door, brought black gloom to his heart, for when the door of the printing office closed before him,the gates of paradise seemed shut forever

Trained in the school of experience, and a graduate of the university of hard-knocks, at twenty years of agethe boy determined to seek his fortune in New York There are few scenes more pathetic than the spectacle ofthis friendless boy starting to walk from Erie, Pa., to this metropolis, then a city of only two hundred thousandpeople He had a tow head, a bent form, a singular dress, and carried his entire belongings in a little bundle,supported by a walking stick thrown over his shoulder Partly on foot, partly on the wagon of some farmer,who gave the traveller a lift, partly on the canal boats, Horace Greeley made his way until, after many days, inAugust, 1831, he landed at the foot of Wall Street

Not Benjamin Franklin, landing on the wharves of Philadelphia, and buying a fresh roll on which he

breakfasted while he went about looking for work, is so fascinating a figure as this simple-hearted, unworldly,artless, unsophisticated youth, with the step of a clodhopper and the face of an angel Counting his coin, theboy found he had ten dollars left, and straightway took lodgings on West Street, for which he promised to paytwo dollars and a half a week He soon found a job and began to set type on an edition of the New Testament,with marginal notes in Greek and Latin In two years he had his own printing office, and in 1834 the youth

found his place as the editor of the New Yorker, a weekly that first of all took stories and the name of Charles

Dickens to the people of New York He soon carried the newspaper up to nine thousand subscribers, and agross income of $25,000 Genius makes its own way The world is always looking for unique ability HoraceGreeley had the art of putting things He could make a statement that would go to the intellect like an arrow tothe bull's-eye There is always plenty of room for the man who has a gift and can do a thing better than anyone else

But the panic of 1837 bankrupted Greeley, who knew nothing about the business end of his enterprise He had9,000 subscribers, but none of them would pay their bills, and the more his paper grew the worse off he was.One day he struck from the roll the names of 2,500 subscribers A little later he offered to give the entireestablishment to a friend, and pay him $2,000 for taking it off his hands, agreeing to work out by typesetting

the large debt Then came an overture from Thurlow Weed and Benedict, and Greeley founded the Log Cabin,

a campaign paper advocating the election of General Harrison as president, and sent out the slogan

"Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Politics was his passion and delight An ardent Whig, he loved Henry Clay as anenthusiast, and worshipped him like a disciple The death of Harrison in 1841, therefore, brought another

crisis into Greeley's life Then he founded the New York Tribune In later years Horace Greeley used to say that the first half of his life was preparatory to founding the Tribune, and the other half to building up the

newspaper that was his pride

On April 3, 1841, the Log Cabin contained an announcement of the appearance of "a morning journal of

politics, literature and general intelligence." It was to be sold for one penny, was to be free from all immoralreports, to be accurate in its statements, impartial in its judgments, unbiassed and unfettered in its opinions

The New Yorker and the Log Cabin were merged in the new journal The expenses for the first week of the

Tribune's existence were $525, and its income $92 Greeley was thirty years old, full of health and vigour,

pluck and determination He never knew when he was defeated, and when events knocked him down, he

quietly got up again In seven weeks the Tribune had a circulation of 11,000 Fertile in resources, full of plans

to advertise his journal, he gained 20,000 during a single political campaign Later he sent carrier pigeons toHalifax to bring home special news When Daniel Webster was to make an important speech in Albany, hesent a case of type up by the night boat, and when the Albany boat reached New York the report of the speech

was all ready to be locked up for the press When the heart sings, the hand works easily Work for the Tribune

was literally food and medicine for Greeley His daily stint was three or four columns, besides his

correspondence, lectures and addresses For twenty years he had no vacation and no rest His one ideal was to

make the Tribune an accurate and trustworthy guide for the political thinking of the common people.

What literature was to Burke, what patriotism was to Webster, what all mankind was to Paul, that politics andpolitical writing were to Horace Greeley Dr Bacon once said of a secretary of the State Association of

Connecticut that he was "possessed of a statistical devil." And Horace Greeley's Tribune Almanac became so

great a power that an envious competitor once said that Horace Greeley was possessed of a political devil,

who helped him in his statistics on Protection At last the Tribune became a national organ, an acknowledged

power Horace Greeley began to make history, and in 1860 prevented Seward's nomination for the presidency

It was Greeley's personal preference for Governor Bates of Missouri that made possible the nomination ofAbraham Lincoln

As a reformer, Greeley was an extremist in politics Whatever he wanted, he wanted on the moment, and had

no patience in waiting He was as uncompromising as Garrison, as insistent as Wendell Phillips, and as bitter

in his criticism of Lincoln for postponing emancipation as Theodore Parker himself could have been Whenthe South seceded Greeley said that we must "let the erring sisters go." He thought that the North could dowithout the South quite as well as the South could do without the North; that is no true marriage that bindshusband and wife together with chains when love has fled away He urged that if any six States would sendtheir representatives to Washington and say: "We wish to withdraw from the Union," the North had better letthose States depart It was not that Greeley felt it was best to dissolve the Union, but that he loathed the idea

of compelling States by force to remain in it

For a long time he carried the head-lines "On to Richmond" and roused the North into such a frenzy of feelingthat he goaded the President, the Cabinet and General Winfield Scott into action before they were ready Scottwas at the head of the army He was a Virginian, and loved the Old Dominion State with every drop of blood

in his veins The great men of the South on their knees begged Scott to join the South and lead the host ofrebellion Scott answered that he had sworn a solemn oath to defend the Constitution and the country, andmade himself an outcast that he might be true to God and the Union But the cry "On to Richmond" becamethe cry of an unreasoning multitude of editors and their readers All unprepared, the advance was ordered andBull Run was the result Greeley, being the leading editor of the land, was made the scapegoat the target ofuniversal criticism The barbed arrows found his brain, and becoming excited, sleepless and overwrought,Greeley went into an attack of brain fever, from which he recovered only after long time, to register a vowthat he would never again discuss the management of the army Then came his editorials urging emancipation,illustrated by "The prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln's wonderful reply, written to Greeley, "in

deference to an old friend whose heart I have always found to be right." It is honour enough for any editor tohave called out Lincoln's letter (August 22, 1862), a letter that placed the President in the first rank as a master

of epigrammatic speech, and put in a nutshell the whole position of the government in relation to the war.Greeley was wrong again in 1864, when he met certain representatives of the South at Niagara Falls andsuggested a plan of adjustment for the ending of the war These so-called peace commissioners, withoutdoubt, used Greeley as a convenient tool, and exhibited him as Don Quixote, riding forth upon a windmillenterprise But Greeley had the courage of his opinions; threats could not cow him nor blows terrify him, norscorn and hate drive him from a position which he had taken upon grounds of conscience and sound

During the draft riots, in 1863, the mob attacked the Tribune, smashing the windows and doors, and it seemed

a miracle that Greeley was not killed When his friends rescued him the great editor seemed quite unwilling to

be forced into a place of safety "Well, it doesn't matter; I have done my work; I may as well be killed by themob as die in my bed; between now and the next time is only a little while."

In May, 1867, Greeley signed the bail bond for Jefferson Davis, ex-president of the Confederacy Burningwith anger his friends in the Union League Club of New York called a meeting to expel him He returned adefiant answer: "Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting; I have an engagement out of town and I shallkeep it I do not recognize you as capable of judging me You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist,misled by a maudlin philosophy I arraign you as narrow-minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to agreat and good cause but don't know how Your attempt to base a great and enduring party on the hate andwrath engendered by a bloody civil war is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which hadsomehow drifted into a tropical ocean I tell you here that out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of humankind, your children will select my going to Richmond and signing that bail bond as the wisest act of my life,and will feel that it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were competent to do though you lived

to the age of Methuselah Understand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you So long as any man wasseeking to overthrow our government he was my enemy; from the hour when he laid down his arms he was

my formerly erring countryman."

In 1872, Greeley became the Republican who was a candidate of the Democratic party for the presidency, andwas defeated by Grant Doubtless he was actuated by the highest sense of duty He took the stump and spoke

in every great city in the North and South, without swerving a hair's breadth in his pacific attitude towards theSouth, or in his championship of the coloured race His great work, "The American Conflict," on which hespent ten hours a day for many, many months, had made Greeley a master of all the facts bearing upon thereconciliation of the North and South He showed almost superhuman endurance during that intense

campaign But Grant had captured the imagination of the people The old soldiers voted as one solid band, theRepublican party was looked upon as the saviour of the nation, and the people doubted Mr Greeley's fitnessfor the presidency in a national crisis He was defeated in November, and went home to watch over his wifeduring her illness and death Just before she died, he wrote a friend saying: "I am a broken old man; I have notslept one hour in twenty-four; if she lasts, poor soul, another week, I shall go before her." Sleeplessnessbrought on brain fever, his old enemy, and on November 29th, the worn-out editor fell on sleep

His fellow countrymen wakened to realize that the great tribune of the people had left the country poor Hisown city rose as one man, in mood of profound grief and affectionate admiration and sympathy His body lay

in state in our city hall the long day through The poor poured by in unending column, to pay their last tribute

to a man who had never betrayed the people The funeral services were attended by the president and

vice-president of the United States, the president-elect, and numerous officials and citizens of distinction Mr.Beecher made one address and then Greeley's pastor, Dr Chapin, spoke Men forgot the wreck of his politicalfortunes and the tragedy of his later career He expressed the ambition of his life in the wish "that the stonewhich covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription: 'Founder of the New YorkTribune.'"

A Universalist in his religious faith, Horace Greeley believed that right was stronger than wrong, good morepowerful than evil, and that there will be in eternal ages no endless perdition for the evil ones of earth, but thatGod and all the resources of His power and love will here or there compel every knee to bow and every willsurrender to the will divine He earned the right to say at the end of his noble career, "I have been spared tosee the end of giant wrongs that I once deemed invincible in this country, and to note the silent upspringingand growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out some of the most flagrant andpervading influences that remain So, looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career whichcannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings vouchsafed me in the past; and with an awe that

is not fear, and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening before my steps ofthe gates of the Eternal World."

VI

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE; JOHN BROWN: THE CONFLICT PRECIPITATED

About 1850, as the result of the long agitation of the editors and orators, preachers and poets, the people ofthis country entered upon a heated mood, when excitement dwelt like fire in the intellect and conscience Forthinking men, it was becoming clear that civil war was inevitable, and that commercial relations betweenNorth and South would soon be broken off But the North had goods to sell, and the South had money withwhich to buy; so the word was passed that every one must keep silence about slavery, lest discussion bring on

a financial panic It was the era of imprisoned moral sense In the ocean, some waves are tidal waves, and onland sometimes the soil is heaved by an earthquake; at this time God began to heave the conscience of thepeople as the full moon heaves the sea And although we now see that God was behind the movement, foolishmen then tried to stay these moral forces Northern merchants and politicians cried, "Peace!" and the Southernsuccessors of Calhoun lifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation went on all over the North.Toombs, the Southern senator, tried sheer bombast, and said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot ofBunker Hill monument Timid men in the North began to cry: "Conciliate, conciliate!" But there can bewarfare, and only warfare between darkness and light, between sickness and health, between wrong and right

At length Phillips and Greeley took up the cry: "Let the South go!" But the answer was: "Shall a strong manwho has hold of a mad dog let the beast go into a crowd of little children?" Compromise did something for atime, as a safety valve, relieving men's pent-up feelings But God had His own counsels Plainly, "every drop

of blood shed by the lash was to be paid for by blood shed by the sword," for "the judgments of God are trueand righteous altogether."

During those heated days of 1850, when the men of light and leading began to see their way clearly, themasses were still timid, hesitant and vacillating in their judgments on slavery Scholars and thinking men hadalready been reached by poets, authors and editors, while the preachers and lecturers had driven their messagehome to the conviction of the ruling classes Later on was to come the revival of 1857 that should stir theconscience, but preparatory to that movement it was necessary to inform the intellect and rouse the affections

of the millions Then it was that God raised up an author to touch the heart of the people

Wonderful the power of the novel in social reform! The novels of "Oliver Twist," and "Dombey and Son,"were what roused the English people to a realization of the woes and wrongs of chimney sweeps, of children

in the factories and mines of Great Britain It was a novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," that later builtPeople's Palace in the Whitechapel district of London And it was a novel, named "Uncle Tom's Cabin," thatcreated the atmosphere of sympathy in which the flowers of self-sacrifice and heroism unfolded

The authoress was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, who had seven sons and four daughters, each one ofwhom was either a preacher or reformer in some field His daughter, Harriet, married Prof Calvin E Stowe,

of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, where, on the border between the free soil of Ohio and the slave soil ofKentucky, people were in a state of constant excitement and upheaval The old Blue Grass State exhibitedslavery in its very best condition and also in its worst form The harrowing tales and incidents that wereafterwards worked up into literary form by the gifted authoress were all matters of observation, conversationand experience One of the earliest incidents of the Stowes' life in Cincinnati was an experience of ProfessorStowe with one of the Beecher boys While travelling in Kentucky, the two young men witnessed the flight of

a negro woman, who was running away with her little child, whom they helped across the Ohio River, to besent on by the Underground Railway to Oberlin, on the shore of Lake Erie And the similar incident, Eliza'sflight across the ice, her son Charles[1] writes in his recent story of her life, "was an actual occurrence Shehad known and had often talked with the very man who helped Eliza up the bank of the river."

Later during their Cincinnati residence, Mrs Stowe conducted a small private school and made a practice ofallowing a few coloured children to attend it One evening the mother of one of these coloured children came

to the Stowes' house in a frenzy of terror, saying that her little girl had been seized and carried to the river, to

be sold as a slave in Kentucky Mrs Stowe raised the money to ransom the beautiful child

It was during this period that the Kentucky editor, Bailey, moved across the river and began to publish a paper

in Cincinnati One night the editor knocked at the door of the Stowe home, seeking refuge from a mob thathad smashed in his doors and windows, looted his printing-office, and flung his type into the river

On another occasion a Kentuckian named Van Zandt freed his slaves and carried them across the river intoOhio His old friends counted him a traitor, and charges were trumped up that he had used his new home inOhio as an underground station for the receiving of runaway slaves Professor Stowe was asked to assist inVan Zandt's defense When other lawyers were afraid of the mob spirit, a young attorney named Salmon P.Chase volunteered his services without pay As the courts were then entirely under the influence of the

Fugitive Slave law, young Chase lost his case; but that no dramatic note might be wanting, this young

attorney later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court and wrote a decision that reversed theformer action All these and many other facts and events went into Mrs Stowe's mind as raw silk, and cameout tapestry and brocade The fuel of events fed the flames of enthusiasm It was a great age, when men had tospeak The time was ripe, the soil was ready, God gave the good seed of liberty, and the sower went forth tosow

Mrs Stowe tells us how she came to write the last chapter of the book, the death of "Uncle Tom." She had acoloured woman in her family whose husband was a slave, living in Kentucky This black man had invented asimple tool, was a good salesman, and was permitted to travel from town to town, and even to cross the riverinto the Ohio, under no bond save his solemn pledge to his master not to run away Mrs Stowe wrote theletters for her servant, to this black man in Covington, Ky One day, while visiting his wife, in the Stowehome, he said that he would rather cut off his right hand than break the word he had given to his master Whatwhite man could boast a more delicate sense of truth? How keen and delicate the conscience! What weight ofmanhood in a slave! What reserves of morality! What latent heroism! The slave's story captured the

imagination of the authoress, and kindled her mind into a creative mood

Out of the incident Mrs Stowe evolved the character of "Uncle Tom." One Sunday morning, as she sat at thecommunion table, the picture of Tom's death rose and passed before her mind "At the same time," writes herson, "the words of Jesus were sounding in her ears: 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these

My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.' It seemed as if the crucified but now risen and glorified Christ werespeaking to her through the poor black man, cut and bleeding under the blows of the slave whip." Longafterwards some one asked Mrs Stowe how she came to write the death of Uncle Tom, and she answered thatshe did not write it, that God gave it to her in a vision, that she saw the overseer flog him to death, and heardhis dying words, and merely wrote down the vision as she saw it At the time, she had no idea of writingmore: it was a year later when she began the tale of which this incident became the crisis

For nearly two years the story ran in the National Era, published in Washington The book was completed on

March 20, 1852, and in spite of Mrs Stowe's despondency and apprehension of failure, it sold 3,000 copiesthe first day, 10,000 in a week, and 300,000 in a year Save "Pilgrim's Progress" alone, perhaps no book everhad a wider circulation, the Bible, of course, and "The Imitation of Christ," by à Kempis, always excepted

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was translated into German, French, Italian and Spanish, and later appeared in almostevery known language Written for the people at large, the book struck a chord of universal human nature, andaroused the learned as well as the simple Soon letters began to pour in from the most distinguished men inforeign countries Charles Dickens wrote that he had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with the deepest interest andsympathy Lord Carlisle sent a message of "deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has enabled you towrite this book." Charles Kingsley expressed the judgment that the story would take away the reproach ofslavery from the great and growing nation Men like Shaftesbury, Arthur Helps, women like George Sand and

Frederika Bremer added their tribute of praise Eighteen different publishing houses in England were issuingthe book at one time, and a million and a half copies were sold in Great Britain.

Even Heinrich Heine, the poet, the cynic, who carried more power of sarcasm and irony than any man of hisgeneration, was so moved by the book that he seems to have returned to the reading of the Bible, and to Christthe Consoler, in the hour when night and death were falling "Astonishing! That after I have whirled about all

my life, over all the dance floors of philosophy, and yielded myself to all the orgies of the intellect, and paid

my addresses to all possible systems, without satisfaction, like Messalina after a licentious night, I now findmyself on the same standpoint where poor Uncle Tom stands on that of the Bible I kneel down by my blackbrother in the same prayer What a humiliation! With all my sense I have come no farther than the poorignorant negro who has just learned to spell Poor Tom indeed seems to have seen deeper things in the holybook than I, but I, who used to make citations from Homer, now begin to quote the Bible as Uncle Tomdoes!" Praise can go no farther than this, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has shown how the love of God cansupport a slave, under the lash, in the hour when he is flogged to death, and fill his heart with pity while hecries, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" It was this that conquered the intellect of thescholar, and broke his heart, and flooded his eyes with tears

Perhaps the most striking testimony to the influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" grew out of a suggestion of LordShaftesbury's that the women of England and Europe send their signatures to a testimonial to be presented toMrs Stowe, for, when this testimonial came in, it filled twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound inmorocco, and it held the names of 562,448 women, representing every rank, from the throne of England to thewives of the humblest artisans in Wales or the peasants in Italy

The message of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is so simple that he who runs may read It was not written for literarycritics, for scholars or for college graduates George Eliot wrote her "Romola" with the historian and thephilosopher and the editor of reviews ever in mind Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" forfarmers, factory men, merchants and clerks, the miscellaneous mass that make up the millions, to rouse them

to the wrongs of slavery

In it she tried to prove two things First, that slavery, as a system, reacted upon the loftiest natures, distortingand injuring them Witness the Kentucky gentleman, Mr Shelby His wife was a patrician, the very

embodiment of courtesy and good-will, affection and sympathy Her husband was a man of honour, a

representative of the bluest blood of the old Lexington families, with a heart so gentle that the sight of a youngbird that had fallen out of the nest in the tree moved him to tears; but, little by little, pressed by his necessitiesand hardened by the spectacle of slaves bought and slaves sold, he himself sells the woman who has been anurse to his children, and Uncle Tom who has been like a saviour to his own boys in the hour of their peril inforest and river, sends both of the slaves into the cotton plantations of Louisiana, breaking his solemn pledge

to his wife and his family, in the hope that he could escape from debt, that like a millstone weighed him intothe abyss

Then, the book tries to show how slavery develops the worst men, of the stamp of Simon Legree, the brutaloverseer Legree pours out the vials of his wrath upon the slaves about him, debauching a young octaroon tothe level of his mistress, hunting his slaves with bloodhounds, killing them without trial before a jury Power

is dangerous; there is the czar spirit in every man Slavery made a brute still more brutal made the sensualman more sensual, and finally debased Legree to the level of the demon

It is a book full of pathos and tears Remembering that the book was written for the miscellaneous millions, torouse the nation at large to moral indignation, it is doubtful whether any book was ever more perfectly

adapted to the end aimed at Literary artists have criticized "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and contrasted it with

"Henry Esmond," "Vanity Fair" and "Adam Bede." But if Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot achievedunique success in creating books that should reach their set, one thing is certain, the boys, who afterwardsbecame the soldiers of the Civil War, read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with dim eyes and indignant hearts, because

the book found their judgment and their conscience, and lifted them to the point where they were made ready

in the day of God's power, to fight the battle for freedom

When all the school children had read the death of little Eva and of Uncle Tom, and all the farmers andworking men the dwellers in city and country, from seaboard to mountains and prairie had followed thecareer of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake to the horror of the slavetraffic, the multitudes began to look with questioning eyes into each other's faces, asking, "What can be done?What is the next step?" And then it was that a fanatic entered the scene

His name was John Brown, descended from Peter Brown, a Pilgrim of the Mayflower He had been

cattle-drover, tanner and wool-merchant When about forty years of age he was living in Springfield,

Massachusetts One night, in 1849, a runaway slave knocked at his door and told Brown the story of his flight,

of the weeks he had spent hiding in the swamps, of his escape to the fastnesses of the mountains, of his life inthe forest, and how he finally reached New York and Springfield It was a story of starvation, hunger, cold,blows and piercing anguish Long after the children had gone to bed at midnight, while the slave was sleeping

in a blanket beside the fire, John Brown sat musing over the national infamy All the next day and night theconference continued with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher The following night John Brownassembled his sons He closed the door and told his family his decision He was a tall man, over six feet,straight and lithe, slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face The Bible was almost the only book in thehouse, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of prayer Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood He toldhis family that he had decided to give himself, and to consecrate them, to righting the wrongs of the slaves;that he had heard a voice calling him to the work of the deliverer; that he would be killed, and that they mustexpect also to die the martyr's death, and that henceforth they must expect only crusts, wounds, bitter enmity,and finally martyrdom A little later and Brown had moved the younger children of his family to North Elba,

in the Adirondack woods, that the slaves on the underground route might be able to hide in the forest, in theevent of the pursuers overtaking them Brown then began to travel along Mason and Dixon's line from the city

of Washington through to Topeka, Kan From time to time he would cross the line, take charge of a littlegroup of slaves, and hiding by day and travelling by night, carry them from one underground station to

another It was said that he had personally conducted runaway slaves along every route for a thousand milesfrom East to West, between the Atlantic and the Missouri River

One of the friends of Brown's childhood was the Hon James B Grinnell, who founded the town and college

in Iowa This congressman loved to tell the story of the night when John Brown knocked at his door Outsidewas a wagon, packed with slaves, whom Brown had carried across the line from Missouri He had driven fourhorses at their limit of speed for a hundred miles and had no defenders, save two or three men and as manyguns "I am a dealer in wool," said the stranger, "and my name is Captain John Brown of Kansas." The firstthing Mr Grinnell did was to find a shelter for these slaves, with food and beds The next thing was to hidethe wagon and the horses in the thick grove near by Early the next morning the news spread like wild-fire,and the settlers began to pour in John Brown made a speech to the farmers and justified his act The villagerswere terrified lest the pursuers come any moment and burn their houses The three Congregational ministersoffered prayers, asked for help, and started out to raise money When the night fell the slaves were rushed tothe terminus of the railway and carried through to Chicago, being shipped in a freight car as sheep, to

distinguish their woolly heads from the goats, named white men

In 1855 John Brown led his five sons and their families into Kansas, to help preëmpt the State for freedom.When at length the free state voters won an election and enthroned their governor, two thousand pro-slaverymen from Missouri crossed the State line, burned the little town of Lawrence, and at the point of the pistolcompelled the State officials to resign; issued writs for a new election, put in a slavery governor, captured thegovernment, and started back into Missouri On their way they passed through Pottawatamie It was a

guerrilla warfare When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing for flight Hedenounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution, answered, "I am tired of that word Caution It isnothing but cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or else the settlers must leave without striking a

single blow in defense of their homes A man's cabin was his castle Without waiting for the next attack to bemade, John Brown pointed the settlers to the smoking ashes of cabins already burned and to the bodies thatthe Missouri guerrillas had left on the ground, and took the aggressive himself He seized five of the outlawsand killed them for their crime.

The deed fired Kansas, some say freed Kansas, while others think it opened the Civil War Withdrawing to the

forest, hiding in the cottonwood swamps, John Brown organized his company A reporter of the New York

Tribune finally penetrated the thicket "Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, already saddled

for a ride for life A dozen rifles were stacked against the trees In an open space was a blazing fire with a potabove it Three or four armed men were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass John Brown himselfstood near the fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand He was poorly clad, and histoes protruded from his boots The old man received me with great cordiality, and the little band gatheredabout me He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the Pottawatamie affair After the meal, thankswere returned to the bountiful Giver Often, I was told, the old man would retire to the densest solitudes towrestle with his God in prayer He said he was fighting God's battles for his children's sake: 'Give me men ofgood principles, God-fearing men, men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of them I will oppose ahundred such men as these border ruffians.' I remained in the camp about an hour Never before had I metsuch a band of men They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate."

After several years of bloody conflict and political struggles between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties,

in 1859 the Constitution prohibiting slavery was passed, and freedom had won in Kansas In January of thatyear John Brown returned to the mountains of Virginia, and "The Great Black Way," and the dark shadows ofthe night following the North Star to liberty For many years he had been planning an uprising of the slaves,and an attack upon Virginia Some biographers think he conceived the plan as early as 1849 Away back in

1834 Brown wrote to his brother his determination to war on slavery; but at first only through educating theblacks As time went on he came into sterner conflict with it

Brown, in fact, became a fanatic who really believed that the millions of slaves would rise at his call, and that

he could lead his host as a new Moses, out of the land of bondage He intended to operate in the Blue RidgeMountains, because the paths into the black belt of slavery were easily followed Men like Douglas and otherescaped slaves who were living in the North did not see their way clear to join the movement

On Sunday, October 16, 1859, John Brown, with sixteen men, started out to capture Harper's Ferry andredeem three million slaves Brown rode in a one-horse wagon, that held provisions, pikes, one

sledge-hammer and one crowbar; his sixteen men, with guns, followed on foot Without a single shot theycaptured the armoury and the rifle factory, and at daylight, without the snap of a gun or any violence

whatsoever, they were in possession of Harper's Ferry On Monday morning the panic spread like wild-fire.The rumour went abroad of an uprising of all the slaves of the South In a few hours the governor called outthe militia, Jefferson guards marched down the Potomac, and two local companies took positions on theheights The assault began in the afternoon One by one Brown's handful were killed, his two sons, Oliver andWatson, were shot down, and Brown, badly wounded, was captured

The trial and examination of the old fanatic makes a fascinating story At noon of Tuesday, the governor ofVirginia bent over him as he lay wounded and blood-stained upon the floor "Who are you?" asked the

governor "My name is John Brown; I have been well known as old John Brown of Kansas Two of my sonswere killed here to-day, and I am dying too I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no reward Ihave acted from a sense of duty, and am content to await my fate I am an old man If I had succeeded inrunning off slaves this time, I could have raised twenty times as many men as I have now for a similar

expedition; but I have failed."

Then Governor Wise said, "The silver of your hair is reddened by the blood of crime You should think uponeternity."

John Brown replied, "Governor, I have not more than fifteen or twenty years the start of you to that eternity,and I am prepared to go There is an eternity behind and an eternity before, and this little speck in the centre isbut a minute The difference between your time and mine is trifling, and I therefore tell you be prepared I amprepared you have a heavy responsibility It behooves you to prepare, and more than it does me."

Friends in the North tried to secure Brown's release, but he answered them: "I think I cannot now better servethe cause I love so much than to die for it, and in my death I may do more than in my life I believe that for

me, at this time, to seal my testimony for God and humanity through my blood will do vastly more towardsadvancing the cause I have earnestly endeavoured to promote than all I have done in my life before."

When the court asked Brown if he had any reason why he should not be hung, he answered: "This courtacknowledges the validity of the law of God I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible Thatbook teaches me to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them I endeavoured to act up to thatinstruction I believe that to interfere as I have done, in behalf of God's poor, was not wrong, but right I amquite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood If it is deemednecessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood furtherwith the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country, whose rights are

disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I submit So let it be done."

On the morning of his hanging he visited his doomed companions, and then kissed his wife good-bye Athousand soldiers stood round about his scaffold "This is a beautiful land," said Brown, as he rode, lookingacross the landscape As he climbed the steps of the scaffold a negro child stood between some black men,and some say he stooped and kissed the child And this was his prayer:

"My love to all who love their neighbours I have asked to be spared from having any weak or hypocriticalprayers said over me when I am publicly murdered, and that my only religious attendants be poor, little, dirty,ragged, bareheaded, and barefooted slave boys and girls, led by some gray-headed slave mother Farewell,farewell." He died in the spirit of the letter written the day before, when he said, "I think I feel as happy asPaul did when he lay in prison, for men cannot chain or hang the soul."

His deed puzzled the world For multitudes it is still an enigma To many, John Brown seems not only afanatic but a lunatic To others, now that long time has passed, this white-haired old man, weltering in hisblood, which he had spilled for a broken and despised race, seems right, and he seems to have died, not as afool dies, but as martyrs die That his enterprise was doomed to failure in advance, all knew That it was notthe wisest plan, Brown's best friends must grant But that its fanaticism was overruled by God to release thegreat South from the incubus of slavery, Brown's friends and Brown's enemies alike must concede

What other men had been writing about, John Brown did in action The attack on Harper's Ferry was the firstblow struck during the Civil War Other men and women assembled the explosives, but John Brown droppedthe spark in the magazine, which finally blew up that hindrance to progress, slavery the Hell Gate obstruction

in the passageway of the South and of all civilization

VII

LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS: INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT DEBATE

Strictly speaking, there were three stages in the development of the anti-slavery sentiment leading up to theCivil War There was the period of indifference, from 1759 to 1830, when the North winked at slavery,ignored the traffic and avoided the whole subject There was the epoch of agitation, from 1831 to 1850, whenGarrison and his friends insisted upon "the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves on thesoil," and the agitation was kept up by men who "would not retreat, who would not equivocate, who wouldnot be silent and who would be heard." Then came the stage when men tried legislative palliatives; when all

manner of political medicaments and poultices were tried as cures, which were about as effective in

destroying the poison as a porous plaster would be to draw out the fire from a volcano For more than sixtyyears a veil had hung before men's minds, and it was as if they saw slaves as trees walking, in an unreal world.The sea captain fears a fog more than an equinoctial storm When the mist falls, and obscures the glass, andthe ship is surrounded with white darkness, and the surf is thundering on some Nantucket, as a graveyard ofthe sea, the captain longs for a cold, sharp wind out of the North, to cut the fog and bring out the stars and sun.And not otherwise was it with the great debate between Lincoln and Douglas it lifted the veil from men'seyes, it swept the fog out of the air, it made the issue clear Then it was that for the first time the North sawthat the conflict was inevitable, because the Union could not endure permanently, half slave and half free; sawthat liberty and slavery were as irreconcilable as day and night

Before considering the influence of Lincoln's clear thinking and speaking upon the eternal principles of right,

we must note the general reawakening of the popular intelligence which preceded it, and which was due totwo causes, the panic of 1857 and the religious revival which swept over the land during the same year As theNorthern merchant began to see that the South had determined to secede and try her fate alone, he becameafraid to sell his goods to Southern customers The Northern manufacturer, in turn, was overstocked, and ifthe banker called his loans there was no response, for the chain was broken; the result was the panic of 1857.Hunger and Want stalked through the land Winter and Poverty became bosom friends Black despair fellupon the people and in the hour of need they cried unto God, and God heard them

When a nation prospers and grows rich, religion languishes When nations enter upon disaster and peril, thepeople turn unto God Abundance enervates Morals always sink to a low level when men's eyes stand outwith fatness

What agitation, what the liberator and the lecture platform, what statesmen and compromisers could notachieve, was accomplished by the spirit of God working upon the hearts of men, clarifying the intellect,deepening the sympathy and lending vigour to the will

The first thing the leader of an orchestra does is to see to it that the instruments are all unified and brought up

to concert pitch, and the revival of religion made the people one in self-sacrifice and their willingness to liveand die for their convictions

Multitudes returned to the churches Thoughtless youth discovered that there are only two great things in theuniverse God and the soul Personal religion became the supreme interest of the hour Men went into thecrucible commonplace; they came out of it heroic stuff All over the country the churches were open everynight in the week Moving across the country the traveller saw the candles burning in the little schoolhouses,while the farmers assembled to pray and read God's word The Fulton Street prayer-meeting in New Yorkattracted the interest of the nation The morning newspapers of 1858 carried columns concerning the businessmen's noon prayer-meeting, just as to-day they carry the column on the stock news and the stock market Inhis "History of the United States" Rhodes calls attention to the fact that 230 persons joined Plymouth Church

on profession of faith on a single Sunday morning That revival all over the land put its moral stamp uponboys and girls who afterwards became the leaders of the generation

Now every reform and every great war for principle proceeds along intellectual lines clearly laid out

Twenty-seven years before the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the "Tariff of Abominations" had brought up thequestion of the right of the Southern states to secede Calhoun had set up his famous doctrine, and Webster, inhis "Second Reply to Hayne," had knocked it down The feeling had been intense, but Webster's wonderfuloration in defense of the Constitution and the Union had succeeded in meeting the crisis, and settling for atime the vexing problem Yet the evil of slavery continued its fatal gnawing at the heart of the nation By1855-6 the old question was up again in much the same form The atmosphere was clouded, the black shroud

of the approaching storm already discernible on the horizon A hundred minor problems united in

complicating the discussion of the one all-important thing Another leader was wanted to set the battle in